The two downstairs rooms were the kitchen, where most time was spent as the fire was always lit, and a parlour. The stairs went up out of the kitchen and opened directly into the bedroom over the kitchen To get to the other bedroom you walked through the first one.  

There was a single cold water tap over the kitchen sink and that was all the inside plumbing. The lavatory  was in the yard alongside the washhouse. Chamber pots provided the  ‘en-suite’  night time facilities.

The ‘bathroom’ was a tin bath that lived in the washhouse and was brought into the kitchen when needed. Hot water came from pans heated on the coal fire in the black leaded kitchen range that contained the oven.

As my father was a miner and baths weren’t provided at the pit head until into the 1950’s it was used at least once a day when his shift was over.

 Underfoot the yard was a mixture of paving flags and cobbles.

The fire grate was about 30 cm above the floor where the ash collected. Occasionally Mice moved into the wall beside the ash pile and I remember one morning finding my mother and brother sitting either side of the fire with flat irons that they dropped on the young mice as they emerged from the nest. The range and a small fire place in the parlour were the only built in sources of heat. Gas lights were installed downstairs and candles and paraffin lamps were used upstairs.

Today the bake house and cottage have been converted into  two self contained apartments  with a shared access from Bridge Street.

The back window looked out over an assortment of blank gravestones, ready for engraving, in Walker’s Bros. yard which extended back as far as the river. The view from the upstairs rear window was of the mill and Mickle Brows.