Despite Bill Brandt's fame and considerable influence on the development of modern photography, the photographs in this book are a little known body of work. The work was carried out between 1939 and 1943 when Brandt worked on a commercial assignment for the Bournville Village Trust. The prints and negatives have been with BVT for some 60 years and the work has never been previously published.

The photographs illustrate the living conditions in a range of housing types. For example, the back-to-back slums built in the nineteenth century through to modern municipal housing built in the 1930s. The majority of the photographs were taken in Birmingham but also some in London where he looked at 'old residential' properties near to his own home in Camden Hill. London was undoubtedly one of Brandt's favourite subjects and these photographs, taken around 1943, are amongst a much larger body of work Brandt shot in the capital city during the war-years.