I grew up in Battersea (south London) in just such a house, loads of characters and a very friendly community. Nobody had a pot so there was no jealousy of who had what or not unlike now.
In the 90's most of the terraces were torn down and replaced with multi storey housing which lost the gardens for slabs of concrete and potted trees which made the place feel very cold and soul less, losing its identity. I went back to the house I lived in then as a few at the end of the street were left ( I am informed the money ran out) and although they had put new tiles on the roof they left the original structure which meant the roof sagged at the back, it was a bit pathetic really.
The original boundry between these back to back terraces was an open sewer and when I was a kid this evident by a dip in the ground level where the boundry wall/fence was, a link with the 17th and 18th century housing boundry location. The school at the top of our street was built over one of the rivers turned into a closed sewer during the big push to cleanse the city and was named after the river, Latchmere school. Yep, despite living over the road from school, I was sometimes late. John, I might have to emulate you as this series has givien me the urge to model these streets as I remember them. Thanks for that.