Georgian & Regency Houses Explained

by Trevor Yorke

  CELLARS AND LARDERS

  Storage of food was a problem in the days before refrigerators and modern methods of preservation. Cellars, larders and pantries had to be as cool as possible to maximise the shelf life. There might have been a single cellar in a basement or a series of them beneath a large house. They were used for storing wine and beer casks, dry goods and candles, and hanging meat and game, and would have had a low, vaulted ceiling, stone, tile or brick floors (often with drains to keep the damp down), usually no window and only limited ventilation to keep them cool.

  Larders (from the Latin lardum, meaning ‘bacon’) or a pantry (from the Latin panis, meaning ‘bread’) were traditionally where the meat and bread were stored but the latter was more flexible by this period and was often referred to as the dry larder; there may have been both in a large house. A general larder would suffice in a medium sized house and it would have had a solid floor, stone shelves at waist height to keep produce cool, wooden ones above and hooks for hanging meat. Again, like the cellars, it would only have had the smallest of openings to the outside and was preferably positioned to the cool north side of the house.

  FIG 7.10: Larders were usually accessed directly from the kitchen and were used to store some meats, fish and dairy products. To keep the larder cool it was usually positioned on the north or east side with a small gauze opening and stone shelves within.

  OTHER ROOMS

  In the largest houses there would have been additional rooms for specific tasks, which increased in number in the Regency period. In most houses the servants would have eaten within the kitchen after the meals had been served but in the largest examples a separate hall was generally provided for them.

  Beer was drunk at meal times, including breakfast, by most of the family as water quality was unreliable and the brewing process purified it. A brewhouse was often found at the rear of large houses, especially in the country.

  The senior members of a large household would expect their own rooms. There would be a butler’s pantry positioned near the rear and close to the dining room (the smooth running of which was his responsibility) and the wine cellar. He used it as an office, a safe place for keeping the best table linen, cutlery, crockery and glasses, a space for cleaning and polishing silver, and as a living room and bedroom. The housekeeper’s room was often at the front of the basement where she could keep an eye on the comings and goings of the staff and store the bulk of the tableware.

  FIG 7.11: In the Regency period the servants were summoned by bells, which were hung from a board and connected to pull cords in each room by fine wires running through pipes in the walls. The bells would often have a hanging piece attached (not shown) and this would continue to vibrate for some time so they could tell which one had rung if it was missed. Previously servants had to sit in the hall and wait to be summoned.

  CHAPTER 8

  Yards and Gardens

  FIG 8.1: The rears of even spacious urban terrace houses were not a space for leisure. They were usually yards with service rooms and mews in the largest examples or small paved yards with a privy, coal and ash bins and a water butt, as in this example, at the back of a medium sized Georgian terrace.

  The area immediately outside the Georgian and Regency houses differed in many ways from those of today, not only in appearance but also because of attitudes towards it. Gardening was not the popular hobby now enjoyed by practically everyone, with every tiny space turned over to greenery and flowers – in fact it did not exist as a pastime at all. The upper and middle classes would never be seen getting their hands dirty and the working masses rarely had the space to do so and then only if the activity involved foodstuffs or livestock. It was not until the later Victorian period, when flushing toilets and earth closets were re-housed within a rear extension and drainage improved, that respectable people started to regard their garden as a place to cultivate plants and flowers.

  FIG 8.2: CAVENDISH SQUARE, LONDON: The square was a later planned development (rather than houses being built around an existing open space, park or village green) provided by the builder as space for the tenants of the surrounding houses to meet respectable society and as a safe sanctuary for children to play under the guidance of a parent or nanny. It was usually gated and railed off to keep unwanted visitors out.

  There was also an emphasis on the front of the house, which was a public place to be looked upon by passers by and from which the householders could gaze at those outside. There was little of our current obsession for privacy as the house was very much a venue for respectable society. Pavements for promenading and enclosed squares of greenery in front of larger urban terraces were used as we might our rear gardens today, while the backs of most terraces in this period were dark, damp spaces for the services where the owner would rarely venture.

  THE FRONTS

  The front of most Georgian houses directly abutted the pavement outside, although some larger examples were set slightly back behind railings with steps leading up to the front door. Later in the period it became common for the façade to be positioned behind a railed off well called the ‘area’, which provided improved lighting into the basement and a discreet entrance down the steps for servants and deliveries. This also gave the owners increased privacy as it became fashionable for staff to be more out of sight of guests.

  This later arrangement meant that the basement was often only partly underground, a half basement, which reduced excavation costs for the builder and the front door was now raised up a set of steps, making a more imposing entrance. However, in many cases, the spoil from the foundations was used to build up the street in front, providing a space under the pavement for cellars accessed from the area of each house. At least one of these would have housed coal, which delivery men would drop down a chute set in the pavement with a removable metal cover to close it off when not in use, still a common sight today along many such terraces.

  Railings were a common sight in front of larger houses, usually to prevent people falling into the area but also as a decorative feature. Most from this period were of simple designs with a single horizontal bar along the top and the bases of each vertical set into a raised sill or directly into the ground (later types or modern replacements usually have a horizontal bar top and bottom). With improved casting in the first decades of the 19th century more elaborate and delicate designs were available. In these days before street lighting (although some early gas lamps did appear towards the end of the Regency period) torches were used by footmen to light lanterns and were put out by conical snuffers, while lamps suspended in metal rings over the steps or at the side provided additional light (see Fig 4.35).

  FIG 8.3: Circular metal covers set in the pavement can still be found above the old chutes down which coal was poured into the storage cellar below. This indicates that the road was built up from spoil dug out from the house foundations and a rise in height can sometimes be found where it meets older roads on the original ground level.

  THE REARS

  Most urban houses had little more than a paved or gravel yard at the rear. This walled space, sometimes backing onto a rear passageway, but other times accessed only through the house, was essential for the storage of the basic services. Coal for the fires and ranges was kept here when there was not a suitable cellar elsewhere, and the ash, which the average house produced in vast quantities, was also stored in the yard. The privy, usually no more than a hole in planks of wood suspended above a cesspit or, in later properties, above drains leading off into a local watercourse, was also here although the owners of the house would use the closets or chamber pots indoors and the servants would carry them outside for emptying. As running water on tap was a rarity until the Regency period most houses had water butts collecting the rain via guttering, usually for washing rather than drinking, and if there was space there might also be room for drying laundry.

  FIG 8.4: BLACK COUNTRY MUSEUM, DUDLEY, WEST MIDLANDS: The privy, bog house or jakes was typically a tall brick structure with
a hole cut into a set of planks providing the seat above a cesspit or drains. Cesspits were filled with either earth or ash and were emptied out by nightsoil men a few times a year.

  FIG 8.5: The mews, which ran along the rear road at the back of large houses, was used for storing the owner’s carriage and horses, usually with a second storey above for the staff. Most examples today have become garages or have been sold off and converted into homes or flats. In other later examples (bottom right) service rooms like the kitchen were sited out here.

  Larger urban houses, especially later in the period, would have many of the services housed out here in rear extensions or separate buildings. Kitchens, sculleries and, in the largest houses, a laundry or even brewhouse could be found where space permitted. It was also common on most big terraced houses to have a mews along the rear, backing onto a private road. These were the double garages of their day where horses and carriages could be stabled on the ground floor with room for the staff above. Most of these have been sold off and converted into flats or garages in the 20th century but, as such, have retained their overall structure, often with the cobbled back lane.

  Although the rear of most houses was an odorous place, a few houses were fortunate enough to have space for a private garden especially early in the period before land prices shot up. The owner in this period, however, would only admire and use it for recreation and leave maintenance to a gardener. The largest detached or terraced houses could have had room for a walled garden with space to grow produce for use in the kitchen and at the rear for a conservatory or extension for an additional room. It was more likely that a small flat rectangular space would be provided with beds and gravel paths for the owners when the services could be housed in or around the house and there was good drainage for the privy. Later in the Regency period the square at the front, around which the terraces were arranged, provided a similar role.

  FIG 8.6: Gardens at the rear were not common but did exist in some of the largest houses, as in these examples restored from records and excavations at The Circus, Bath (left) and Pickford’s House, Derby (right).

  DATING HOUSES

  Dating a house can be achieved visually and with documentation, the former giving only an approximate time-frame but quickly, the latter more time consuming but potentially more exact. In most cases it will only be through a combination of a number of datable features and a selection of facts from various documents that the approximate date of construction will be found. This task is trickier for Georgian housing when information and especially maps are harder to find and not always accurate, but easier for the later Regency buildings as there are generally more documents and records, and styles began to be less regionalised and easier to date.

  Datestones: You may be fortunate enough simply to have a date emblazoned on the exterior of your house. It may appear in the form of a plaque, a keystone (the central segment of an arch or lintel over a door) or on the rainwater trap at the top of guttering. Be very wary, though, as this is often recording a later makeover and not the original date of the main structure. Georgians had the opposite attitude towards houses than we do today – then it was modern that should be celebrated and old that should be hidden! It was very common in this period for owners to give the façade a make over in the latest style when they could not afford to rebuild the entire house. For instance, new cast iron guttering would proudly display the date so the whole property would appear more modern.

  Visual Dating: The following time chart, which shows the style of external details that were popular in approximate time-frames, and the photographs in Chapter 4 will help you identify the time when your house was likely to have been built. Look at the pitch of the roof, the style of original windows and doors, the bonding and uniformity of the brick, the position and prominence of the chimney, the presence or not of a rear extension and the form of details like sash windows and classical ornamentation. It is also important to look at and find out more about similar houses in your street or local area, especially if there are ones that are of a similar structure in your row but have retained datable original features. However, yet again, caution is needed as, firstly, houses were often built in small numbers of perhaps two or three; others in the same row could have been erected by different builders at an earlier or later date. Fashions also reached areas at different times and although it is assumed in the past that they originated in London and spread out across the country over the following decades, the improvements in transport and new architectural publications in the second half of the period meant that new ideas could travel quickly and to distant parts in a seemingly haphazard manner. For instance, a forward thinking aristocrat might bring the latest fashion in London to his remote country estate and use it upon houses in the estate village, long before the style came into general use in the neighbouring towns.

  FIG 9.1: DATESTONES:Examples of dates that can be found on rainwater traps, plaques and keystones.

  Documentary Evidence: Documentary evidence is usually essential for dating houses from this period with greater accuracy. There are a number of sources listed below, most of which are available from your local or county library, which are a good starting point. If these, however, prove fruitless the bibliography lists a number of books that will take your research further.

  Maps: Local or county libraries usually store maps from this period, although before the 19th century there was no general mapping agency and it is only through luck that your area may have been surveyed for an enclosure act or sale of land. The first editions of the Ordnance Survey small-scale maps (1 inch to a mile) date from 1805–73 but could be inaccurate (republished by David and Charles). They are a quick and easy way to see when your house appears, but be careful when interpreting the date on the map as there were revisions to add new railways and roads and it is important to check any accompanying notes for the sheet you are using. They also are only telling you that it was there by the time of the survey and not when it was actually built.

  Victoria County Histories: A detailed series of books, which after a century are still only half complete! If your town or village is covered it could save you digging through old documents to piece together the history of your parish and background to your house. They are packed with useful information and often tell you when an area or road was laid out (although the houses built along it may date from some time after).

  Listing: All houses from this period should be listed, Grade II for the majority, Grade II* and Grade I for the most exceptional. Either the local library or council offices should have a record of this listing, often a survey done by county officials or architectural experts looking at the properties in question. This may be the easiest way to find an approximate date for your house but as internal inspection is not always possible there may be limits to their value.

  ‘The Buildings of England’ series: An indispensable series of books begun some forty to fifty years ago by the architectural expert Nicholas Pevsner (and revised with up-to-date notes by many others) that cover each county, commenting on and dating buildings of note in each town or village. The degree to which your area is covered may vary but if you are lucky many quite modest houses may be recorded and given approximate dates, while notable houses are studied more accurately.

  Other sources: If you have access to your deeds they may simply answer the question; if not it might be possible to find out who was the landlord, often a company, university or landed estate, and their records, estate papers and building accounts can be useful. Local history books and groups are always a good source of information. Trade directories for the local area list addresses and can tell you when a house existed but are only generally available for the later part of this period. Also try tithe surveys (late 1830s) in the Public Record Office, plans for new roads and canals, fire insurance records, and local papers.

  Above all with tracing the history of your house, where time permits, always work from the whole to the part. That is, look at the general history of y
our local area before getting bogged down with the tiniest details on the house itself.

  TIME CHART

  BIBLIOGRAPHY

  The following books may also be useful for further information:

  Social History

  Hibbert, Christopher The English: A Social History 1066–1945 (1994)

  Iredale, David and Barrett, John Discovering Local History (1999)

  Sheppard, Francis London: A History (1999)

  Strong, Roy The Story of Britain (1996)

  Strong, Roy The Spirit of Britain (2000)

  Taylor, Christopher Village and Farmstead (1983)

  Williams, E.N. Life in Georgian England (1967)

  Architecture

  Avery, Derek Georgian and Regency Architecture (2003)

  Breckon, Bill and Parker, Jeffrey Tracing the History of Houses (2000)

  Brunskill, R.W. Brick Building in Britain (1990)

  Brunskill, R.W. Houses and Cottages of Britain (1997)

  Curl, James Stevens Classical Architecture (2001)

  Currer-Briggs, Noel Debrett’s Guide to Your House (no longer in print)

  Dowdy, Mac; Miller, Judith; and Austin, David Be Your Own House Detective (1997)

  Fleming, John; Honour, Hugh; and Pevsner, Nikolaus The Penguin Dictionary of Architecture and Landscape Architecture (1998)

  Iredale, David and Barrett, John Discovering Your Old House (1997)

  Pevsner, Nikolaus The Buildings of England (various counties)