Georgian & Regency Houses Explained

Trevor Yorke

• Publisher: Countryside Books
• Year: 2011
• ISBN:
  9781846748066
• Topic: Architektur
• Subtopic: Architekturgeschichte

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.

CHAPTER 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

Two 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 furthest south he reached before turning back and being defeated in the following year at Culloden. Today the house is an excellent museum with a totally restored interior and garden.

The succession skipped a generation to George II’s grandson in 1760, a young man who having been brought up on this isle could claim to be English. Much has been made of George III’s bouts of madness but the insanity was probably misdiagnosed and exaggerated, in part by his son, the future Prince Regent, who like the other Hanoverian kings was a thorn in the side of his father. Despite this, Farmer George, as this enthusiastic agricultural improver was affectionately known, was popular and a devoted family man, setting new moral standards for the monarchy, which came under increased scrutiny in the wake of the French Revolution which began in 1789.

FIG 1.3: PARK CRESCENT, LONDON: Part of the Regents Street and Park development built by John Nash for the Prince Regent, later George IV.

His son, the Prince Regent from 1811 until his father’s death in 1820 and George IV for the following ten years, had no such reputation and despite being a society man and connoisseur of the arts was mocked as overweight, vain, dishonourable and a liar. His passing away in 1830 raised barely a murmur from the public and the period named after his tenure, the Regency, and its distinctive and colourful architecture credits him with a place in history that his character little deserved. His ill equipped successor, Silly Billy as he was known to the family, never expected to be king and yet in his short seven year reign William IV restored dignity to the throne and played a vital part in the passing through Parliament of the Reform Act of 1832.

POLITICS AND WAR

Reform of Parliament was well overdue by this time as the electoral system was still medieval with patterns of representation that protected aristocratic rule but hardly matched the new urban populations that had developed through the Georgian period. Despite this lack of change there were many aspects that had improved as it grew in influence and power throughout the 18th century. Rather than being called upon only when the monarch required funds, Parliament now sat at a regular time each year, the arrival in London of the MPs and their entourage (generally in autumn) signalling the start of the ‘Season’. This lasted through to the following spring, a social whirlwind that in turn affected the development of the capital. Stability had also been achieved with a seven year length of government rather than the previous three year term. Other important changes were the appearance of salaried civil servants who were awarded positions on merit rather than by connections, and the development of long-term planning, commissions and white papers, with political parties formed around policies rather than patronage.

The Georgian kings and their governments generally believed in a non-interference policy, removing restrictions for economic expansion and giving a free rein to companies, private individuals and financial institutions. However, they operated by different rules when it came to warfare! Spurred on by trading interests and a dislike, especially, of the French, Britain became interwoven in European politics and fought what were openly termed as ‘commercial wars’ with the reward of territorial gains and the resulting increase in trade the carrot dangling at the end of the stick. The country was generally successful in this policy, finding itself by the end of the period with a massive empire bound together by trade and protected by the Royal Navy, which ensured supplies of raw materials and foods and a ready market for its manufactured goods in return.

However, the loss of the colonies in 1783 after defeat in the American War of Independence and the threat of invasion from France during 1793 to 1815 caused disruption in the economy and society back home, with those on the bottom rung of the ladder usually suffering worst. The after effects of this latter conflict posed the greatest threat to the authorities, with post war economic depression, hundreds of thousands of disbanded soldiers looking for work, poor harvests, protest rallies and the threat of revolution. The Reform Act of 1832 was in part a reaction to quell this by granting the vote to a wider proportion of the middle classes, although any ideas of democracy and working class representation were far from their thoughts.

AGRICULTURE, INDUSTRY AND TRANSPORT

Despite increased trade and commercial growth, agriculture remained the dominant industry and cornerstone of the economy throughout most of this period. The wealthy relied upon rents from tenants on their estates and they in turn upon a healthy market for their produce, which increasingly went for sale rather than sustenance. The variable demand, warfare and the weather created a fluctuating picture but after poor years in the 1730s and 40s agriculture generally picked up, especially in areas where new enclosures had reorganised the fields into more efficient units.

Industry at this stage was widespread but generally small in scale and even where large works or mills were constructed much of the manufacturing process was carried out by families at home in the surrounding town and villages. As with agriculture, the drive for improvement was a defining character of the age. Financially supported by wealthy family members or others from the same religious group, inventors and entrepreneurs from even modest backgrounds could now design, conduct experiments and market their products on a larger scale.

There were two key factors in the growth of industry, the first being the steam engine. A restriction upon the early industrial workings of the 16th and 17th centuries was power which, as it principally came from waterwheels, limited the location and was susceptible to seasonal fluctuations in supply. The development of an efficient steam engine by Thomas Newcomen and its further improvement by James Watt gave a more flexible and reliable source of power and crucially carried out the pumping of water from mines so that the raw materials of industry could be extracted from deeper workings. The second factor was the improvement of the river navigations and development of a canal network, which reached a peak of construction in the 1790s. Transporting raw materials to site and the finished product away had restricted industrial growth as roads were too poor for heavy goods to be moved any distance and rivers were affected by droughts, flooding and obstructions, principally from mills. The canals were engineered to solve many of these seasonal problems and to reach areas not served by rivers, with the effect that the price of goods was reduced and new factories and settlements sprang up along their banks.

FIG 1.4: MASSON MILLS, CROMFORD, DERBYSHIRE: The second mill built by Richard Arkwright at Cromford, dating from 1783. Although the cotton was spun in this water-powered mill, other proce...