User:Giano/Behind the facade

This page is far from finished, so please do not rely on it, as I have yet to check all the facts!  Giacomo   22:47, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

This is a rather elaborate, but light hearted Wikipedia essay addressed largely to Wikipedians living in England. Especially those who are not particularly interested in architecture, but like looking at their environment. The idea is to explain without boring and dwelling too much on too much detail.

Nikolaus Pevsner in a series of books described every single English building or note and quite a few of little note. Every single person In England lives close to a few of those buildings, but many don't realise it. I hope that editors will read this page, or even just look at the pictures, and realise that their own home, local manor house, vicarage, lunatic asylum, hospital, council offices, children's home or school may fit into one of the categories defined here, and is worth at least a two line stub. A two line stub (even unreferenced) is a good foundation for someone else to build upon.

It's my ambition to see all of Pevsner's building eventually on Wikipedia, and domestic architecture is a good place to start because people can identify with it. You don't have to be interested in architecture to notice it or appreciate it and a two line stub based on a building you realise is interesting because it's similar to something on this page is better than no page at all. You can even lift the two lines from here if you want to, as reasons for its notability which is all a page has to prove. References can all be tagged, they are not essential to create a stub. If in doubt ask me, I'll soon tell you if your hunch is right.



Britain is rich in its great houses. Many of them have evolved from fortified castles and manors; these are often the asymmetrical houses with a profusion of towers and gables jostling for position with formal facades. However, from the 16th century it became common for the rich, and the aspiring rich, to build new architecturally designed houses to display not only their wealth and power, but also their cultivation and taste. The craze for building huge and spectacular mansions and palaces continued until the early 20th century, when following the end of the World War I the old order crumbled and those fortunate enough to remain in possession of their fortunes found it impossible to hire the staff to maintain and serve such large houses.

During the 20th century, throughout Europe thousands of grand houses were pulled down or institutionalised; those that remained were often radically reduced in size and/or opened to the paying public. To those viewing these great houses, the interiors and their functions often seem a mystery a mystery not adequately explained by the guide books. Why for instance is the best bedroom placed, seemingly inconveniently, on the reception floor next to the drawing room? Why does a house need three or even four drawing rooms? Why have two staircases in close proximity, or even no staircase at all? Or to the more practically minded, why is the kitchen half a kilometre from the dining room, and where did the 40 servants eat and sleep when there is no visible evidence of servant's quarters? Or, perhaps the most obvious question: why is the front door upstairs?

It's the intention of this page to explain in simple terms, by analysing a house from each period, why large houses, built between 1598 and 1914 are in so many different styles, shapes and forms; and to explain the activities that went on behind the profusion of identical and non-revealing windows and doors that make so many houses an oppressive mystery to the casual observer. As it's an essay, I'm not going to reference everything, you'll have to take my word. I may add a few that would make good further reading to anyone who is interested, but this page is not written with the very interested in mind, or those that want to acquire a degree in architecture: they can go elsewhere for the in-depth stuff.

The Renaissance house


These are, in my opinion, the best of English architecture, but beware of cheap imitations, for every good English Renaissance house, there are probably a hundred cheap and nasty copies thrown up by Victorians. The real things were created by the the mates and rich hangers-on of the Tudors and the early Stuarts and nobody else.

Britain did not really have a Renaissance, in terms of architecture, but Renaissance architecture of the Italian Renaissance, born in Florence, slowly spread across Europe to Britain during the 15th and 16th centuries. As it advanced towards Britain it acquired various local architectural traits of the countries through which it spread. When it finally arrived in England during the 15th century, large unfortified country houses were regularly being built in their entirety for the first time. This was largely because of new money. When Elizabeth I ascended the throne in 15?? the country had63 titled aristocratic families; of these, only 28 predated the Tudor era Most of these families were keen to build new seats to reflect their newly acquired titles and power.

While some of the earliest English renaissance influences can be seen in Henry VIII's palace at Hampton Court the first house I can think of that was truly in the English Renaissance stye is Burghley House started about 1555. Burghley was built for one of the era's new men, Elizabeth's chancellor Lord Burghley, described in 1600, as having "climbed the ladder of success, he pulled it well out of everyone elese's reach."

The style can seem confused, compared to that seen in Florence, and many of the most notable houses of this period, Hatfield House (1611) and Blickling Hall (1616) incorporate what appears to be the best of both worlds, the towers and turrets redolent of a castle combined with the balustrades, statuary and columns of the Renaissance. This seems to be particularly true of the larger mansions at this time. A common feature of both the smaller and larger houses of this period, a feature which the English embraced with surprising vigour considering their climate, was the large window, mullioned windows, bay windows and oriel windows in huge profusion became a feature of the English Renaissance - to such an extent that some houses appear to be built of glass; Hardwick Hall is a prime example. However, a house considered to be one of the finest examples of this period was built for a relatively unknown courtier, by an unknown architect in a then remote part of Britain days from London. This is Montacute House built in 1598.

We are going to look in depth at this one because it has many of the common features found in far smaller houses of this era - the sort of farmhouse, vicarage and merchants house found in many English villages. What also is so great about it is, that it's owners never had enough money to alter it - they added to corridor top the back making it the front and that's about it. The great hall remains, just as it did when built, when family and servants all ate together in it; the great chamber to where the family retired to is still in situ, and at the top of the house a huge long gallery remains exactly as completed. Thus, one so one can really appreciate the machinations with in a great Elizabethan household.

Externally, One of Montacute's most distinguishing features are its Flemmish gables, a feature of the English Renaissance acquired as the style flowed from Florence through the Low Countries. This form of gable can be seen in many buildings of this period, both large and small. The most obvious true Renaissance feature is the statuary between the windows of the top floor (housing the long gallery)creating a provincial Somerset version of the Medici's Palazzo Uffizi in Florence. If you compare the two buildings initially there is little resemblance, but if you look harder you can start to see those features which survived the Renaissance's journey from Florence to Somerset. The ground floor contains recessed niches for statuary with shell motifs. One fun thing the house has are its stone monkeys which are clambering all over the Flemish gables, showing someone involved in the design must have had a sense if humour.

The Carolean House


Carolean Houses the name comes from Latin Carlos meaning Charles as in Charles I and Charles II, I suppose it could include Oliver Cromwell (who came between them), but I don't suppose many wise people chose to build huge houses and live like lords during his time. Carolean Houses must have been a pleasure to live in because for the first time people had a degree of privacy, as the idea of placing rooms back to back was invented. In an age with no corridors it meant people could go from room to room without through another room. Guides in "stately homes" always tell people that curtained four poster beds were to keep people warm and stop draughts, another reason was to allow people to have a bonk without the world and his wife passing through the room having a good eyeful. Rooms back to back also meant houses were warmer, as the firplaces coul be in the centre of the houses too, and of course houses could be more compact, the servants were put in the basement and the attics and the gentry lived fairly privately in the middle.

My favourite house from this perios is Belton House so we will use that one to analyse the style. Firstly, do not confuse compact for small, the owners of these house were in no way downsizing or economizing. Quite the reverse, because this was also the era of very rich decoration. People like Grinling Gibbons were charging a fortune to panel a room with amazing carvings and create flamboyant staircases. Imported marbles were used for floors and fireplaces and those that could not afford marble, or had floor not strong enough to take it had painted wood to resemble it.

The Power House




The power houses, many of the top league stately homes (horrible expression - can you imagine a Duchess saying "Oh do come to tea in my stately home tomorrow") belong in this category. They can easliy be recognised, they are the larger 18th century mansions seen throughout Britain. In a style loosely defined as "Georgian", more often than not they have a profusion of identical windows, pillasters and a portico. The more common and leser known are often long and narrow, made to appear larger than they actually are, while the better known, like Blenheim Palace, can be of monumantal proportions.

"The Power House" was a term first coinded by the author Mark Girouard, and describes Britains 18th century country houses and estates. The land provided not only the power to run and maintain a vast house, providing status, image and an opportuniity to display education and wealth, but also perhaps most importantly, electoral govermnental seats. The size of the house and estate can read as an accurate barometer of its original builders aspirations for power.

During the 19th century income from agriculture plummeted with the consequence that many of the houses becam white elephants - deteriorated were demolished or fell into the hands of "new money" made from industry - an occupation the previous owners would have felt intolerable.

A few terms explained
With hardly an exception the "power houses" followed the same architectural format, one that was designed to impress - a high central section, symmetrical spreading wings and very often pronounced terminating sections at each end. This popular format has historical origins.

The first country houses (in the sense that the term is interpreted today: sophisticated rural retreats) were built in Italy, as villas, from the mid 16th century - Villa Capra and Villa Godi are prime examples. These villas, frequently inspired by classical architecture, were generally quite small, but appeared to be larger than they were by the addition of flanking pavilions housing the kitchen and servants in one pavilion and farm animals, even a dung store, in the other. These pavilions were often connected to the main house (the corps de logis) only by open collonades. The greatest exponent of this format was the architect Andrea Palladio. In the 17th century his work swept through Europe reaching its zenith in the 18th century. Under architects from Inigo Jones to the neoclassicist Robert Adam Palldios concepts evolved. While the corps de logis always contained the very best rooms, the collonades became enclosed and together with the pavilions became part of the house. Enabling long enfilades of grand rooms to be created. The style became known as Palladianism (quite different from the original work of Palladio) and traces of it can be seen in countless European mansions of the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries. Palladianism can be very austere as at Holkham Hall, but it's format of a central block, with wings often extending to a pavilion survived in many later forms of architecture.

The Dilletante's house


One a par, but with a different concept was the dilletante's house. You will recognise these because they are incongruous and stick out as foreigh and often alarming and they all belong to the 18th century.

During the 18th century, the Grand Tour became the final part of many young male aristocrat's education. While some never ventured further than the drug dens of Constantinople and brothels of Naples, the point of the exercise was to study the arts and architecture of antiquity and obtain a dose of the clap. On returning home with their newly bought ancient objects d'art and statuary (often of doubtful provenance) these now educated (if sore) young men built a new houses or wings on to older houses to not only show their new collections, but also display their newly found education and learning. This is why one finds ancient medieval castles, gabled Tudor mansions and Jacobean palaces suddenly sprouting an incongruous classsical wing known as the orrangery of sculpture gallery. However, for some a wing on the existing ancestral pile was not enough. A few such as Thomas Coke at Holkham Hall demolished their ancestral home and rebuilt in what was such a severe form of Palladianism that it was almost Roman in it's clssical form. The end result was often a half finished house and bankruptcy. Others built near replicas of the Palladian villas they had seem on their travels, England once had three replicas of the Villa Capra - Mereworth Castle and Chiswick House still surviving, but none of them were particlarly faithful to the original. The dilletante's house I want to look at is possibly the most exccentric and bizzare house of all those dating from this period, Ickworth House. I would like to say it had been built by a rich young playboy back from the Grand Tour, as that would suit the example and story, but it was actually built by a rich old bishop who seems to have had an obsession with round houses. However, he was obviously young at heart because his house fitted the sterotype of thise being built by the young men returned full of learning from their Grand Tours. Where Ickworth was concerned the rich playboys came much later and, sadly, the "playing" of the boy caused the end of the family's assocoation with the house, but salacious and interesting as that is, it's not why we are here.

It is also worth noting that the Bishop's wife, like many women at the time, had no input. This was probably a good thing, as women tend to take an altogether different and more practical approach to architecture. Had its first chatelaine's wishes been adhered to Blenheim Palace, Britian's largest house, would probably never been built. Bess of Hardwick was one of the few exceptions, but then she was very rich indeed and, unlike the unfortunate chatelaine of Blenheim never had to try and bargain with surly bricklayers.

Ickworth a good example to look at because from the outside its impossible to work out what is going on inside. I always imagined it probably had rooms like a slice of cake, so the reality was a bit of a let down, it's pretty conventional for its type and era. It's a sad fact in architecture that the more bizzarre the external appearance the more disspoinitng and normal the interior. The family who owned it (not suprisingly, a very funny lot) were never happy with it and always playing arownd with it.

A vast Rotunda flanked by curved classical wings leading to Palladian pavlions; one to house the family in private, the other(never finished) intended as a large gallery and orangery. Insode, the rooms fit in best they can, each obviously has to have one curved wall, but it seems to have been treated more as an inconvenience to be ignored than a feature. The house has a central stair hall which by necessity of the rotunda's circumfrance is too small and awkward - over the years successive schemes for new staircses were implemented or dreamt up, but nothing really worked too well; and of course, upstairs the necessity of having a gallery to walk around the staircase meant that there was even more wasted space. Howver, the wasted space did not matter too much because Ickworth had two great wings spreading from it )one never finished) and the other a perfectly conventional self-contained country house for the family to live in. Be on your guard for these, there are not oo many of them, lots were knocked down inthe 2Oth century. Architecturally they are interesting and make a good Wikipedia page, if you can fine one.

The Victorian house
This section is quite important in learning how to identify an English building - the reason being is that many of England's's ancient manors and castles are in fact not very ancient - they were built from the mid 19th century with the sole intention of fooling you. Well not just you, quite a lot of other people including the newly acquired friends of their builders. Victorian mansions were built in an assortment of what we now call of retro styles - they called them "revival style" and no doubt claimed they were chosen for aesthetic, cultural and educational purpose - maybe - but "manors", "courts", "castles", "towers" and "parks" also conveniently added a little "class" to new money.

Confusingly for us, the Victorian industrialists and bankers did not confine themselves to one period - we often equate, quite rightly, Victorian and Gothic together, but that is only a fraction of the story. The Victorians copied almost every architectural style that ever existed in Europe and had no qualms or conscience about combining them. So amazing did some of these houses become that even old money and people who ought to have known better began to join in the fun. Hence the Prince of Wales would leave his brand new Jacobethan pile at Sandringham to stay in his rich friend's brand spanking new Renaissance chateau at Waddesdon. After a weekend slaughtering foxes the whole party, aristocrats, money lenders and their mistresses would move on to the Duke of Sutherland's Italianate palace at Trentham to slaughter some pheasants before going on to Earl Somers "castle" at Eastnor to exterminate a few more foxes.

The great houses built by the financiers and bankers are often the most eclectic, lavish and richly furnished. This is not because their builders had more money than most other people, but from the Medici to the Rothschilds in their private lives, away from commerce, they have often been manic collectors of the arts, then having acquired a huge art collection, have had to build a large house in which to display it. In the 19th century, when it was fashionable to show a little retro-individualism in architecture, in many cases a patron's chosen favourite field of collection was to be the inspiration for the architecture. This is why one often sees chateaux and Renaissance palazzi in the most incongruous of English settings.



No family better exemplified this than the Rothschilds who built numerous country mansions throughout Europe. So great was their wealth, that they colonised an entire English county. However, the Rothschilds were not alone. Following the industrial revolution all over Britain new millionaires, confident in their tastes were building huge houses in styles ranging from the Gothic Revival and the Renaissance to that that curious hybrid, the Italianate and on to the Chateauesque. In Scotland, the aristocracy joined new money in embracing the Scottish Baronial style. Thus the 19th century proved to be one of most liberating and architecturally confusing centuries ever. From a distance, often the only way of telling a house's true history was the size of its window panes, almost always in the 19th century mansion huge sheets of plate glass were employed, through which the newly acquired estates could be admired.

At the 19th century Renaissance palace that is Mentmore Towers the numerous small drawing rooms and cabinets served as private art galleries and museums, rather than for reception of guests and gracious living. In fact, at 19th century Waddesdon Manor so priceless were the contents of the many smaller rooms, that a few years after the house's initial completion it became necessary to build a huge hall, "the morning room", as place for guests to congregate and relax in comfort.

Often, the 19th century house was so huge that a smaller and self contained wing, was built for the family to inhabit in warmth and comfort - these small wings stretching from the sides of some of England's monumental Gothic houses add to the general medieval theme of the exteriors.

The other irritating habit the Victorians had in relation to architecture was an inability to leave anything alone. Beautiful small architectural gems, such as Arlington Court would be sitting quietly in the sunshine minding their own business, when bang! along would come a new owner, or even an existing one, and squander a fortune adding a huge unnecessary wing to house a multitude of servants - a wing that often dwarfed the existing house. During this period it was not unusual to have a service wing at least equal in size to the main residential wing.

The early 20th century house
The early 20th century was the last time that any significant number of country houses were built in Britain. Before World War I, the rich were still paying little tax and servants were still plentiful and cheap so it was possible to build. Possibly the best known architect of these houses was Edwin Lutyens. He was an odd little man, a social climber who married an aristocrat; she became embroiled in an odd sect and shut up shop on the sex front, leaving him with little to do but design houses. which usually went drastically over budget, and give her all his earnings. Anyway, despite his oddness, he did build loads of country houses and his designs and concepts were the inspiration for many more. Putting aside his pompous and incredibly imperialistic buildings in New Delhi, in the English countryside one spots his buildings and their imitators by looking for high pitched, overpowering roofs, very tall chimneys, verandahs and a general contrived farmhouse appearance - even when the house is huge. His other style was for Queen Anne architecture type buildings with a confused touch of the Italian Villa. Occasionally, he was employed by a client who was as big a social climber as he was, and the result could be very dramatic, as in England's last castle. If you want to know more about Lutyens his type of thing, read up on the Arts and crafts movement


 * Harold Peto
 * Herbert Baker