Step inside Birmingham's last court of back-to-back houses

Tucked beside the Hippodrome on Hurst Street is one of Birmingham's most moving visitor attractions. The Birmingham Back to Backs, also known as Court 15, are the city's last surviving court of back-to-back houses, and a guided tour here is a vivid way to understand how ordinary people lived in the industrial city.

Back-to-backs were built in their thousands around shared courtyards to house Birmingham's fast-growing population. They were later deemed unsatisfactory, and by the early 1970s almost all of them had been demolished. Court 15, on the corner of Inge Street and Hurst Street, survived.

More than 500 families lived in the court over the years. Many worked from home as button makers, glassworkers, leatherworkers, tailors and skilled craftsmen in the jewellery and small metal trades. From the 1830s to the 1930s, the Mitchells, a family of locksmiths and bellhangers, lived and worked here.

The court was listed at Grade II in 1988 and restored by Birmingham Conservation Trust, opening to the public on 21 July 2004. It is now cared for by the National Trust, and each of the houses is presented as if in a different era, from the 1840s through to the 1970s.

Tours last an hour and a half and are designed to be evocative, with fires alight in the grates and the sounds and smells of the past. Visitors see Mr Levi's bedroom-turned-workshop and Mrs Oldfield's kitchen, and finish in the tailor's shop of George Saunders. George came to the UK from the Caribbean in 1958 and worked as a tailor at the Back to Backs from 1974 to 2001, making clothes for local celebrities and even riding jodhpurs for the Queen's Household Cavalry. His donated items form the UK's only collection of work by a Caribbean tailor.

Ground-floor tours of about an hour are available for those who prefer to avoid the narrow, winding stairs, and the second-hand bookshop and exhibition space are free to enter. Visits are by guided tour only, so booking ahead is strongly advised.

Opening times, prices and tour bookings are on the National Trust website.