The most noticeable feature of the mews house today is, of course, the ‘garage’ which takes up most of the ground floor. This is usually where the coach would have been stored in Victorian times. Most mews were 2-story buildings. The ground floor usually contained the coach house, stalls for the horses, a loose box, a harness room and grain bins.  The coach men, grooms and other stable workers lived on the floor above, sometimes with their families. 

Sometimes mews buildings were 3-storeys. The horses went up a ramp to stables on the first floor above the coach house. The coachmen then lived on the second floor. Laconia Mews (now De Vere Cottages) which were built in 1877-78 were constructed in this way. The coaches were stored on the ground floor. There were stables on the first floor approached up a tightly-turned ramp. The living quarters were on the second floor.  They were reached by stairs built up to a gallery on the second floor. The stairs were ingeniously constructed inside the turn of the horse ramp. On the second floor there were then doorways into the accommodation within.

The census of 1871 gives some idea of how mews properties were occupied. In the Queen’s Gate area, as an example, there were 131 mews properties.  Of the heads of family living there, 120 (86%) were coachmen.  114 were married.  Presumably they had children, and possibly grooms and other servants lodged with them. Since mews houses are quite small even for a single person these days, it is amazing to think how they crammed all those people in.