Not so Grim, Really: Angel Meadow, Manchester

Headline in the Manchester Guardian:

Archaeologists Reveal Grim Secrets of Angel Meadow, Manchester's Filthiest Slum

Read the article, though, and you are left wondering what the "grim secrets" are. All the bad stuff comes from historical records, and especially Engels, who said that Angel Meadow was a "hell on earth."  The archaeology revealed four small houses, placed very close together, each with two rooms measuring 10 feet square. Each house had a fireplace. The houses were probably damp -- a "meadow" in England was usually a place too wet to plow -- but they look rather snug. They were tiny by our standards, but not by those of the time.

And this is what archaeologists usually find in slums. Not dramatic stories about alcoholic ruin, tuberculosis, crime, and whatever other horrors troubled the residents of Angel Meadow, but evidence that life went on: houses, hearths, dishes, bottles, bones, buttons, and so on. Look at those old photographs; does Angel Meadow look that terrible? Or the remains of  those houses above, with solid brick walls and stone floors. Compared to the wigwams and pit houses of prehistoric Indians, or frontier log cabins, or the sod house Laura Ingalls lived in at Plum Creek, these look like decent places to live.

Archaeology does not reveal what was really terrible about life in urban slums: disease, miserable working conditions, and so on. Instead it reveals that the residents were full-fledged members of their own cultures, living in more or less the same way that their richer neighbor did. Archaeology has completely changed my own view of nineteenth century urban life. The conditions that made the notorious slums bad were more psychological than material, more about hopelessness and a sense of abandonment than absolute material deprivation.

Old maps and rent records have helped me to identify William’s two-storey home as one of the four buildings unearthed by the team from Oxford Archaeology North as they search for clues about life in the slum. They were damp and overcrowded back-to-back houses with just two rooms measuring 10ft square, and with slate roofs and dank cellars. William paid an extortionate weekly rent of four shillings and nine pence, but it was a step up the property ladder for him – just six years earlier he had been living in a cellar. Site director Chris Wild from Oxford Archaeology North said: "These were among Manchester’s poorest housing conditions. A whole family lived here. They had a fireplace. Often they didn’t even have furniture. They were just living on straw on the floor.

Read more at: http://menmedia.co.uk/manchestereveningnews/news/s/1487068_digging-up-the-past-archaeologists-reveal-grim-secrets-of-angel-meadow-manchesters-filthiest-slum

Old maps and rent records have helped me to identify William’s two-storey home as one of the four buildings unearthed by the team from Oxford Archaeology North as they search for clues about life in the slum. They were damp and overcrowded back-to-back houses with just two rooms measuring 10ft square, and with slate roofs and dank cellars. William paid an extortionate weekly rent of four shillings and nine pence, but it was a step up the property ladder for him – just six years earlier he had been living in a cellar. Site director Chris Wild from Oxford Archaeology North said: "These were among Manchester’s poorest housing conditions. A whole family lived here. They had a fireplace. Often they didn’t even have furniture. They were just living on straw on the floor.

Read more at: http://menmedia.co.uk/manchestereveningnews/news/s/1487068_digging-up-the-past-archaeologists-reveal-grim-secrets-of-angel-meadow-manchesters-filthiest-slum

Old maps and rent records have helped me to identify William’s two-storey home as one of the four buildings unearthed by the team from Oxford Archaeology North as they search for clues about life in the slum. They were damp and overcrowded back-to-back houses with just two rooms measuring 10ft square, and with slate roofs and dank cellars. William paid an extortionate weekly rent of four shillings and nine pence, but it was a step up the property ladder for him – just six years earlier he had been living in a cellar. Site director Chris Wild from Oxford Archaeology North said: "These were among Manchester’s poorest housing conditions. A whole family lived here. They had a fireplace. Often they didn’t even have furniture. They were just living on straw on the floor.

Read more at: http://menmedia.co.uk/manchestereveningnews/news/s/1487068_digging-up-the-past-archaeologists-reveal-grim-secrets-of-angel-meadow-manchesters-filthiest-slu

Digging up the past: Archaeologists reveal grim secrets of Angel Meadow, Manchester's filthiest slum

Read more at: http://menmedia.co.uk/manchestereveningnews/news/s/1487068_digging-up-the-past-archaeologists-reveal-grim-secrets-of-angel-meadow-manchesters-filthiest-slum

Digging up the past: Archaeologists reveal grim secrets of Angel Meadow, Manchester's filthiest slum

Read more at: http://menmedia.co.uk/manchestereveningnews/news/s/1487068_digging-up-the-past-archaeologists-reveal-grim-secrets-of-angel-meadow-manchesters-filthiest-slum

Digging up the past: Archaeologists reveal grim secrets of Angel Meadow, Manchester's filthiest slum

Read more at: http://menmedia.co.uk/manchestereveningnews/news/s/1487068_digging-up-the-past-archaeologists-reveal-grim-secrets-of-angel-meadow-manchesters-filthiest-slum

Digging up the past: Archaeologists reveal grim secrets of Angel Meadow, Manchester's filthiest slum

Read more at: http://menmedia.co.uk/manchestereveningnews/news/s/1487068_digging-up-the-past-archaeologists-reveal-grim-secrets-of-angel-meadow-manchesters-filthiest-slum

Digging up the past: Archaeologists reveal grim secrets of Angel Meadow, Manchester's filthiest slum

Read more at: http://menmedia.co.uk/manchestereveningnews/news/s/1487068_digging-up-the-past-archaeologists-reveal-grim-secrets-of-angel-meadow-manchesters-filthiest-slum

Digging up the past: Archaeologists reveal grim secrets of Angel Meadow, Manchester's filthiest slum

Read more at: http://menmedia.co.uk/manchestereveningnews/news/s/1487068_digging-up-the-past-archaeologists-reveal-grim-secrets-of-angel-meadow-manchesters-filthiest-slum

Digging up the past: Archaeologists reveal grim secrets of Angel Meadow, Manchester's filthiest slum

Read more at: http://menmedia.co.uk/manchestereveningnews/news/s/1487068_digging-up-the-past-archaeologists-reveal-grim-secrets-of-angel-meadow-manchesters-filthiest-slum

Digging up the past: Archaeologists reveal grim secrets of Angel Meadow, Manchester's filthiest slum

Read more at: http://menmedia.co.uk/manchestereveningnews/news/s/1487068_digging-up-the-past-archaeologists-reveal-grim-secrets-of-angel-meadow-manchesters-filthiest-slum

Digging up the past: Archaeologists reveal grim secrets of Angel Meadow, Manchester's filthiest slum

Read more at: http://menmedia.co.uk/manchestereveningnews/news/s/1487068_digging-up-the-past-archaeologists-reveal-grim-secrets-of-angel-meadow-manchesters-filthiest-slum

Digging up the past: Archaeologists reveal grim secrets of Angel Meadow, Manchester's filthiest slum

Read more at: http://menmedia.co.uk/manchestereveningnews/news/s/1487068_digging-up-the-past-archaeologists-reveal-grim-secrets-of-angel-meadow-manchesters-filthiest-slum