Georgian & Regency Houses Explained , livre ebook

Countryside Books - Trevor Yorke

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124 pages

English

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A Georgian or Regency house conjures up a distinct and much admired image. Elegance, refinement and beautiful proportions have made this period an inspiration for later architects and a popular choice for today's house buyer. Whether it is the grand, symmetrical facades embellished with classical motifs or elegant terrace arranged around spacious communal gardens, this easy to understand guide looks behind the distinctive publice face of houses dating from 1714 to 1830. It expaliens how and why they were built, laid out and designed; how they appeared inside and who owned them. Using his own drawings, diagrams and photographs, author Trevor Yorke explains all aspects of the Georgian and Regency house and provices a comprehensive guide for those who are renovating, tracing the history of their own home or simply interested in houses of this notable period. The book is divided into three sections. The first outlines the history of the period, which affected how houses were planned and built, explains the development, structure and design, and describes the plans, materials and construction. The second steps inside and looks at the different rooms and their fittings, what they were used for and how they would have appeared. The final section contains a quick reference guide with notes on dating houses, suggestions for further reading, a glossary of unfamiliar terms and details of places to visit.

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History of architecture

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Publié par	Countryside Books
Date de parution	18 juillet 2011
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781846748066
Langue	English
Poids de l'ouvrage	2 Mo

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0474€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

Extrait

GEORGIAN REGENCY HOUSES EXPLAINED

TREVOR YORKE

COUNTRYSIDE BOOKS NEWBURY BERKSHIRE
First published 2007 Trevor Yorke 2007 Reprinted 2009, 2011
All rights reserved. No reproduction permitted without the prior permission of the publisher:
COUNTRYSIDE BOOKS 3 Catherine Road Newbury, Berkshire
To view our complete range of books, please visit us at www.countrysidebooks.co.uk
ISBN 978 1 84674 051 0
Photographs and illustrations by the author
All material for the manufacture of this book was sourced from sustainable forests.
Designed by Peter Davies, Nautilus Design Produced through MRM Associates Ltd., Reading Typeset by CJWT Solutions, St Helens Printed by Information Press, Oxford
C ONTENTS
I NTRODUCTION

SECTION I
T HE H ISTORY OF G EORGIAN AND R EGENCY H OUSES
Chapter 1
T HE B ACKGROUND
Chapter 2
G EORGIAN AND R EGENCY H OUSING
Chapter 3
T HE G EORGIAN AND R EGENCY H OUSE
Chapter 4
G EORGIAN AND R EGENCY S TYLE

SECTION II
G EORGIAN AND R EGENCY H OUSES IN D ETAIL
Chapter 5
G ENERAL F ITTINGS AND D ECORATION
Chapter 6
R ECEPTION AND F AMILY R OOMS
Chapter 7
S ERVICE R OOMS
Chapter 8
Y ARDS AND G ARDENS

SECTION III
Q UICK R EFERENCE G UIDE
D ATING H OUSES
T IME C HART
B IBLIOGRAPHY
P LACES TO V ISIT
G LOSSARY
I NDEX
Introduction

W hether it is the grand, symmetrical fa ades embellished with classical motifs or towering terraces repeated in endless rows or arranged around clumps of greenery, the Georgian and Regency houses conjure up a distinct and much admired image. Elegance, refinement and beautiful proportions have made the classically inspired urban terrace or larger detached house from this period a major influence for later architects and a popular choice for the modern house buyer. They offer a grand aspect with impressively tall rooms and are decorated with restraint, giving them a timeless quality that offends few and attracts many.
Yet what lies behind these idyllic fa ades? When you strip away the veneer of stone, brick or render, what will you find beneath? The answer is often surprising and very revealing about the period. It is principally with these Georgian and Regency urban terraces and detached houses in mind that this book looks behind the classical public face and explains how they were built, originally laid out and designed, their appearance inside and who owned them. It is intended, too, as an easy to understand guide, illustrated with my own drawings, diagrams and photos, to help give the reader a background knowledge of all aspects of the Georgian and Regency house, whether they are renovating, tracing the history of their own property, or simply interested in this notable period.
The book is divided into three sections. The first describes the development, structure and design of the houses. It begins by outlining the story of the Georgian period, the events that shaped the country, the social changes of the time, urban expansion and the Industrial and Agricultural Revolutions. All these directly influenced the demand, location and type of housing from this period. It then goes further to describe the plans, materials and construction of these new homes before finally looking at the changing fashions of the exterior, with drawings and photos to aid the recognition of the different styles and the date when they were likely to have been built.
The second section goes inside and looks at the different rooms and their fittings, what were they used for and how would they have originally appeared. The third is a quick reference guide with notes on the dating of houses, suggested books to further any research, places to visit and a glossary to explain some of the terms used.
Trevor Yorke
FIG 1.0: Fa ades of a stone and brick house with labels of the parts .

C HAPTER 1
The Background

FIG 1.1: CHISWICK HOUSE, LONDON: One of the first great Palladian mansions, built in the 1720s by the 3rd Earl of Burlington, who promoted the architecture of Palladio and Inigo Jones, both influencing the design of 18th century houses. Palladio was arguably the first professional architect, working in 16th century Italy and publishing his theories and designs for later generations to interpret. Inigo Jones brought this classical style to these shores in the early 17th century and created buildings way ahead of his time, ones that were not appreciated and imitated until brought back to life by Burlington and his disciples .
A Brief History of the Georgian Period
T wo principal themes from popular culture and school history textbooks tend to dominate most views of the Georgian period. On one side there is the image of the classical country house set in vast, sweeping parkland, with sensitive gentlemen being whisked away in carriages to formal city squares where walking and dining seemed the main preoccupations. It is a world of elegance, indulgence and wealth dominated by aristocratic families, shaped by Robert Adam and Capability Brown and recorded by Gainsborough.
On the other side there are the Industrial and Agricultural Revolutions, with new townscapes of fiery furnaces, smoking chimneys and back to back housing contrasting with a countryside divided up into regular units, the preserve of the wealthier local families. It is the time of the inventor and entrepreneur, Watt, Trevithick, Wedgwood and Boulton, and of rural revolution in the form of enclosure and emparkment, the move from husbandry to farming for a profit.
The commonly perceived images listed above, however, are only part of the picture, and one which either changed little or slowly at best, and was far from complete by the end of this period. Although this Age of Reason where the medieval and modern worlds met was shaped by a drive for improvement, commercial expansion and the threat of revolution, a powerful aristocracy and ancient institutions still held a tight grip on the reins. Despite the gradual sapping of power to Parliament, the monarchy still sat at the top of the pile, selecting ministers and directing policy, and the succession of each was still a cause for concern, no more so than when Queen Anne, the last of the House of Stuart, died in 1714.
THE HOUSE OF HANOVER
How did the Elector of Hanover (one of the series of small German states, which did not form themselves into the modern-day country until 1870) find himself the king of England in 1714 and the first of the four Georges from which the period is named? The answer lies with the previous Stuart kings who had Catholic sympathies that were wisely kept under wraps in a country in mortal fear of a return to the old faith they had so painfully broken away from in the 16th century. However, when James II came to the throne in 1685 the problem returned to the fore. This arrogant, ill-advised king made no secret of his Roman Catholic conversion and attempted to position men of similar faith in high office. With the birth of his son in 1688 it became clear that a Catholic dynasty threatened and a group, including the Bishop of London, invited William of Orange, the son of one of James s sisters and the husband of James s daughter Mary, to take the throne. His subsequent landing with, in effect, a Dutch invasion force resulted in James, who had lost the support of Parliament and the armed forces, to turn and run, surrendering his throne but not abdicating.
To ensure a Protestant succession the Act of Settlement was passed in 1701, which required any future monarch to be a member of the Church of England. This was a position which Anne, the second daughter of James II, embraced wholeheartedly when she ascended the throne on the death of the childless William in 1702. Her tragedy was that her seventeen children all died in infancy except William who lived to only eleven, so upon her death in 1714 it was feared that the succession would be threatened by the son of James II, the arguably rightful heir to the throne known as the Old Pretender. The 1701 Act had to go back to the children of James I to find a Protestant succession, with the crown being passed on to the grandson of his daughter Elizabeth, who had married a German prince. With the Jacobites (the followers of James Stuart, from Jacob , the Latin for his name) disorganised, the new Hanoverian King George took the throne with little opposition, the expected threat from the Old Pretender being defeated in the following year.
George I could barely speak a word of English, preferred to spend his time in his beloved homeland and was surrounded by controversy over the imprisonment of his wife and the suspicious death of her lover, especially when his bones turned up under the floor of one of the king s palaces! His most notable act was leaving the country in the hands of Robert Walpole, whose dominant political position made him in effect our first Prime Minister, and ushered in a period of relative political stability after the turmoil of the previous century.
The king s son, George II, who succeeded him in 1727, was still influenced by his German upbringing and, as with many of his predecessors, was happy to share the court with his wife and a series of mistresses. His other passion was warfare and at the age of 60 he became the last English monarch to fight on the front line, in this case against the old enemy France. The main threat of his reign, however, came from the Young Pretender, Bonnie Prince Charlie, who led a Jacobite invasion in 1745 to reclaim the throne, reaching as far south as Derby before returning to Scotland. He was defeated by George s brother, the Duke of Cumberland, at Culloden in the following year, which in effect ended the Catholic threat to the throne.

FIG 1.2: PICKFORD S HOUSE, FRIAR GATE, DERBY: This house, dating from around 1770, was built by Joseph Pickford on the road along which, only 25 years earlier, Bonnie Prince Charlie had ridden into Derby during the rebellion of 1745. This was the fu