Northdown CP — Current theme: Housing

The first census to report on how well people were housed was that of 1891, but the only statistics gathered were on the number of rooms and the number of people in each household. Note that in 1931 and 1951 the least crowded category reported on by the Scottish census was "Under 2 persons per room", while from 1971 onwards the most crowded category reported on anywhere was "Over 1.5 persons per room, so it is not possible to present exactly the same measure for all years and areas. From 1951 onwards, more questions were asked about 'amenities', meaning specific facilities that households either possessed or had shared access to, and from 1961 data were gathered on tenure: whether households owned or rented their homes.

One interesting measure of progress is the change in the amenities covered by the census. In 1951, these were piped water, a cooking stove, a kitchen sink, a 'water closet' meaning a flush toilet, and a 'fixed bath', as distinct from a tin bath hung on the wall between uses. By 2011, the only "amenity" recorded was central heating, so direct comparisons over the whole period from 1951 to 2011 are impossible, other than looking at what proportion of all households had "all amenities", i.e. all of whatever amenities were listed for each census. Our density data are counts of persons in households, while our amenity data are counts of households.

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We hold these detailed statistics for Northdown, which we graph and tabulate here:

Available datasets	Period covered	Variables (number of categories)
House Occupancy	1901	Housing Occupancy (3)
House Occupancy 10 years earlier	1901	Housing Occupancy (3)
Total Households	1901 to 1911	Total Households (4)
Total Houses	1901	Total Houses (1)

Read more about how we hold statistics here.