Victorian Terrace Original Layout?

[themaninblack]

It struck me last night that my house must be a very different place to when it was first built ~1900. What I'm wondering is - how different?

Does anybody know if the Victorian / early Edwardian houses that we are so blessed with in South East London are laid out like the one here-

Victorian Floor Plan

I'd love to know if that is a standard layout or if they varied significantly.

And does anybody live in one with an reasonably unchanged layout? I'm guessing everybody now has a bathroom and inside toilet :))

Mine has certainly been changed, but we do still have the coal chute and cover by the front door which reminds me how lucky we are with central heating every time I look at it!

Would love to hear what you think!

[Huggers]

mine is still laid out like this pretty much-

The loo off the scullery has been insulated, its external door walled up and an internal door put in.

Our scullery is our kitchen and the old kitchen is now our dining room.

We recently removed what we thought was a very sturdy shelf from our dining room - it turned out to be a side crossing chimney that would have been above the copper.

We had the back bedroom and the bathroom behind it. We are currently moving this- but we've had it like that for ten years. It was lovely when the children were small to have a huge bathroom attached to their cosy bedroom. But now it is annoying to have to walk through a bedroom.

We still have some original victorian lino in patches stuck to our top landing.

The original wallpaper in the hall revealed itself to us when we had a radiator leak that removed the wallpaper on top. We have partially restored this with help of varnish and stick on flowers!

Our house is pretty characterfull and gothic, but many would find it dark.

We bought it off an old lady and we are the third owners since it was built.

edited to add: our bathroom renovations haveonly just removed the piping for gas lamps which lined the back bedroom.

[KidKruger]

Layout unchanged.

I found the remnants of the old iron range in the boarded-up fireplace of my kitchen at back of the house.

The outside loo still had the cast iron toilet cistern on the wall, which I fixed-up and am now using in my bathroom (above the kitchen), the outside loo is now a 'garden store'. The drain still works.

I too ripped out the old gas pipes from the breasts of two bedrooms but they partially remain under the floorboards.

Top floor of house was damaged by a nearby bomb blast so was largely rebuilt.

I replaced the lead water pipe to the mains.

Down the end of the garden was buried a veritable array of broken and intact bottles/jars/toothpaste pots in glass and 'pot'.

When I opened up the kitchen fireplace there were stashed some commemorative tin crown-shaped ornaments with chains (for hanging on the wall), presumably from a coronation though I know not which and there was also a bottle of spirit/fortified wine (judging by bottle shape), not sure what type as label long perished. I do wonder sometimes if the contents are drinkable....

[themaninblack]

The staircase in mine has been moved, with changes to the doors leading to what was the parlour and kitchen. Our back door is where the alcove / sink were, with the old one turned into a wide modern window under which lives the sink.

There are no fireplaces in the whole house although capped off chimneys remain on the roof. I do hope something strong is holding them up there!

Also our front bedroom and middle bedroom doors are next to each other with a bathroom created at the top of the stairs, leaving us with three bedrooms.

Quite a shame really as I feel some of the character is missing. Not quite as much of a shame as top and bottom flats though. They get very creative with space when they convert them!!

[Huggers]

yes most bathrooms were brought out from the back and put at the top of the stairs, the other half of that 'off room'/bedroom creating the corridor to a modern bedroom.

We looked round loads o fhouses when we were buying and there were quite a few with the original arrangement.

We still have separate reception rooms too- quite small when you have friends round but fantastic if the children want to watch telly and you want do do something else.

The victorians were brilliant at making the best use of space.

If you have ever wondered why so many unrennovated houses do not have a window or door at the back of the kitchen ,but a side looking window, while french doors go out to the garden from the reception, this is because the scullery and kitchen was the realm of the day maid- which most families, however modest employed- and you didnt want to be looking at her at her work while you were in your garden.

See Noel Cowards film 'This Happy Breed' to get a good gander at the interior of the victorian/edwardian house in the inter-war years which was unchanged till the seventies. The absence of a telly as focus of a living room also made for a totally different arrangement of furniture- chairs in a semi circle round the fire, a work table at the side.

[themaninblack]

I really do find the whole thing quite fascinating. I might go and view some houses just for a nose :)

[Moos]

themaninblack Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> There are no fireplaces in the whole house

> although capped off chimneys remain on the roof. I

> do hope something strong is holding them up

> there!

When we bought our house the top floor fireplace had been partially removed, but a lot of the bricks were still there. What was holding them up was the plaster of our bedroom ceiling below...

Luckily we found this out quite quickly and got them removed!

[cate]

A lot of the houses in Ivydale Road had/have the scullery arrangement at the back. They also have the big morning room before the scullery effectively giving you an extra reception. I do believe they are the biggest three bed houses I have seen in this area.

[dulwichgirl2]

Fascinating thread.... Does anyone have any similar experiences to relate? Our side door (prev tradesman's entrance) has been filled in and we just have a stained glass half window. Our scullery has gone which is a shame but most of the cornicing and panelling remains.

[Huggers]

We have just taken the 1950's fireplace off the dining room and found the original large white tiles from the range at the back, encasing the large square hole. Not only that, but at the side is a pile of art nouveau tiles, assume these belong to the fireplace that replaced the range- when cookers came in- but before the 50's gas fire. The owner like me probably couldnt resist hanging onto things and rather than throw them away, left them behind the fireplace just in case.

Hoping to reincorporate them back into fireplace somewhere.

After all these years we have just knocked the dining room (morning room?)and kitchen into one, the space is huge!Trying to preserve the original spirit though.

[dulwichgirl2]

Interesting huggers.

Sudden thought - where was the coal stored in

terraced houses?

[KidKruger]

Terraced houses was either a coal hole under front door, a coal box in front yard, or coal was carried through to backyard.

[Vik]

We live in a Victorian terrace and have a coal hole on the front path that goes to a small area at the front of our basement. Ours has been converted a lot over the years (before our time) we did find our lovely tiled fireplace hidden behind plasterbord and a horrible gas fire.

Does anyone know if there's anyway of finding out the original layout?

[KidKruger]

Tell-tale signs under the floorboards (ie. old footings) can tell about previous brick walls, or (as in my house) an indication of where the solid floor of the scullery used to be. Another clue is abrupt changes in picture rails, ceiling coving and skirting.

People obviously paint/plaster over marks so until you'r ripping coverings off it's often difficult to identify old layout.

[computedshorty]

This Link will show the types of houses,have a look round.

http://www.bricksandbrass.co.uk/design_history/georgian_style.php

[snowboarder]

I've always wondered what the original front garden perimeter wall/fence was - the houses seem so uniform but walking along the streets there is now such a hitch pitch of hedges and wall styles. The streets around bellenden where there is a standard low wall and railings look great. I kind of expect the original treatment was a low wall in stock brick and a hedge?

[dulwichgirl2]

Thanks vik and Kk and for the link.

[gibbo2468]

We live in a 'half house', i think this would originally have been one double fronted terrace which has been split down the middle to make two houses. Does anyone know what the original layout would have been and were the original stairs were?

[dulwichgirl2]

Where are the half houses? (if you can state another road as an example perhaps?)

There are tiny cottages in sw6 which have a staircase on the diagonal as you go in. It is difficult to describe better than this. The staircase is not in front of you going up, nor is it to the right or left but it is in the middle of the room you enter and goes diagonally. Does anyone know what I mean and can anyone put it better? Do any of these houses exist in ed?

[gibbo2468]

There are half houses in Silvester road and Landells Rd, most have the staircase running from the back of the house to the front with a tiny square of 'landing' at the top, i wondered what these were like originally?

[KidKruger]

From the half houses I've been in and worked on in ED and Nunhead they've all been purpose built.

Modest dwellings rather than partitioned grander properties, this includes Silvester Rd and Waveney Rd.

[Jeremy]

I also thought that the half houses were purpose built, because the layouts (particularly entrances) are all seem pretty much the same. And I'm not sure it would even be feasible to split a house down the middle like that. You'd need to practically rebuild it.

[civilservant]

I've often wondered how a half house differed from a semi-detached house.

Are they split in two vertically i.e. like a semi, or horizontally i.e. like a layer cake?

[Townleygreen]

Vertically. They share one hall, they then have 2 front doors, 2 up 2 down plus loft.

[civilservant]

I think I understand - so do they share a single street door which leads into the shared hall?

Or are these the houses with two narrow front doors side by side, in an entrance where one might expect to find a single (albeit quite wide) street door?

I ask because my Googling has brought up precious little info on the subject