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From the 1880s through to the early 1900s, Shaw’s work was much imitated by
speculative builders for middle class housing and large, fussy, red brick houses
with porches, wooden verandas, small window panes in the upper sashes - and the
occasional Dutch gable - became a familiar part of the outer suburbs of London
and other large towns and cities. Stained glass became popular for front doors
and porches while the floor and dados of porches and hallways were often
finished in decorative tiles which were produced in huge quantities from the
1870s. After 1905, pargetting – decorative relief plasterwork - recalling the
seventeenth century domestic architecture of Essex and Suffolk – pebble dash
and half timbered gables became popular. In the hands of speculative
builders, suburban villas began to look like enlarged cottages. Although
roofs were prominent, houses were generally not as tall and there was now a
greater horizontal look to the facade. Plans tended to be squarer and
without a basement the main living rooms now had direct access to the
garden. |
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Some of these features found their way down to the better quality artisan
terraced house built around 1900. Often with their own name in imitation of
the larger house, these were villas within a terrace; they provided homes
for the upwardly mobile artisan and clerk – like the fictitious Mr Pooter of ‘The Laurels’, Holloway,
London. Terraced houses of between four and six rooms remained the answer for
mass urban housing. Typically laid out in straight, monotonous streets with
little open space and erected by small builders employing local methods and
material they still exhibited considerable local and regional variety. From the
1870s, national and local legislation aimed at improving public health at least
ensured that basic standards of construction, sanitation and adequate space –
front and back - were maintained. |
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