Numbers Garth, advert on wall reads Mother Shipton's Soap No Boiling.
Stan Mapstone says " I don't think that this is actually a photograph of Numbers Garth, it is a house on Russell Street at the north entrance to Numbers Garth. I have another photograph taken of the same house but which also shows the houses on the other side of the entrance with Garden Street School in the background. You can just see the school in the background on your photo and the lamp at the very left edge of the photo is at the end of Numbers Garth."
Low Street
The east end of Low St joined the river at the quays and it was in this area that the cholera epidemic of 1831-32 is said to have started in England brought over by ship from Riga. The first death was of a 60 year old keelman Wiiliam Sproat on 26 October 1831 and eleven more followed before the month was out. The speed at which cholera spread is not surprising because at the time the area was full of were grossly overcrowded boarding houses while privies and cess pits competed with piggeries and slaughter houses to create "a picture of wretchedness, filth and poverty" (Dr.F.Magendie 1831) Efforts to alleviate these filthy condtions started in 1851.
Information from Len Charlton.
