Primarily, I have been looking at websites and images of old London. Because it has been around the time of the plague, I have been researching about conditions and lifestyle around then. The main websites I have looked at are:
http://www.channel4.com/history/microsites/H/history/i-m/london2.html
(a website about the history of London run by channel 4)
http://www.museumoflondon.org.uk/English/Learning/Learningonline/features/viking/viking_4.htm
(a website about medieval london from the museum of London)
This gave me a great starting point. It also helped me with making our scene historically correct.
The channel 4 website I found extremely useful. I discovered that London was a very tightly packed city with a lot of houses in a short amount of space. This was what caused the bad conditions.
The large amounts of people caused dirt and cramped areas. There are gutters on each side of the street where the dirt and grime would collect, not just from the street but the grime from the houses ended up there too. Such as dirty bath water and sewage. People did not care about hygiene then either so there was a large amount of body odour only adding to the filth. They would also wear the same clothes for massive amounts of time and sleep in them too. They would sometimes sleep with several people which would cause heat and sweat leading to more stench.
The authorise employed a team of cleaners to keep the city free of filth but there was too much filth to keep in control of. They would carry large carts and have spades to shovel up the sewage from the gutters in the streets.
The sanitation was a massive issue because there were open sewers everywhere. The rivers became so dirty that they were almost as bad as the sewers. This was because the sewers would run into the river so that large amounts of faeces and sewage and waste would end up going straight not the river.
They relied on wells to get their water which always had a risk of contamination. This made many people sick and because of the cramped conditions, sickness spread easily. When the Black Death hit London, it spread very fast and people would die within a matter of days because of the poor conditions.
I found out some more information on the museum of london website.
Most people in London traders, peasants, beggars thieves or herders which would herd animals throughout the streets.
Most of the schools were run by churches and religion was a strong influence.
There was not a lot of medical knowledge so little illnesses that effect us today, such as the common cold, would have been life threatening back then. The healthcare was also expensive so the doctors mainly cared for the rich which meant there was a lot of death.
When my group and I met to discuss the idea we had decided on having gates that were really gothic and old. We also decided that our scene would follow a rat and that the rat would start in the sewer and crawl out from the drain. We then had the idea of people throwing rubbish and dirty water out of windows which would add grime and dirt to our scene.
By doing research, I discovered that gates were not found in a cramped London street that was filled with poverty. Gates were used to protect the large manor houses on the outskirts of the town where people were much richer. This was because gates were used as protection and in an old London street full of poor people, there was nothing worth protecting.
I also discovered that the rat climbing out of a drain would not be historically correct because there were no sewers until much later. All the sewage would be poured into the street into gutters running down each road. There was no underground system.
This did mean we needed to rethink our idea slightly but it was not too much of a hassle.
My next port of call is to visit some places. There are a few museums and attractions to visit such as the Museum of London and Dickens World. These will both give me a good idea into what houses and the conditions of the town in that era.
As I have looked into London more and more, I have discovered that Sherlock Holmes was filmed in Chatham Dockyard and some surrounding areas. I can visit these places quite easily and plan to get some good photographs which will help my research.
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