A Street in China

Communal off-street open space adjoining residences, as sketched by Shirley Wood in her 1958 memoir A Street in China (London, Michael Joseph). This diagram appears on page 8, accompanied by a list of 'characters', i.e. the tenants, 31 people in all. Descriptions of the space itself is however limited: p. 14 'After some complicated manooeuvring we... trundled up the lane and around the corner of a bamboo fence into a stony courtyard with our new home before us.' On p. 15, we are told of a similar space adjoining: 'A little back room looked across a thatched shed into the next courtyard, which was a factory processing lard and edible pigskin.'