Victorian Architecture  (1837 - 1901) 19th century

The Victorian period is the time when Queen Victoria

 ruled Britain.

A public building in a town

Despite the availability of these new products vast numbers of the working

population in the countryside were still living in tiny cottages, hovels and shacks well into the 20th century. In towns poor people lived

in back-to-back houses called terraced houses.

Terraced Houses

Rich Victorians favoured villas ( not the same as Roman villas), whilst the

emerging middle classes of Victorian England lived in superior terraces with gardens back and front and a room for

servants in the attic.

Victorian houses were built in a time when not many people had cars. In fact it was only towards the end of the Victorian period that cars were even invented.Victorian houses were built without garages as there was no need for a place to store a car.

Victorian houses have chimneys because they often had a fireplace in most rooms. The fire was the only way to keep warm. Today, houses are built without chimneys because houses are kept warm via central heating. Most modern houses have radiators in each room instead of a fireplace.

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Typical Characteristics of Victorian houses

Bay windows (they stick out)Iron RailingsFlemish brick bondingPatterns in the brickwork made from coloured bricksStained glass in doorways and windows.Roofs made of slate.No garageSash windows (they open by sliding the window up)

Houses for workers were built in rows.Terraced Housing

During the Victorian times more and more people moved into the new industrial towns to work in the mills and factories and rows of terraced back-to-back houses were built to house them. The houses were joined together to save space. Each row was called a terrace.

Terraced houses were very small with two rooms upstairs and two downstairs. There were often no gardens, only small back yards where the outside toilet was.

Sliding sash windows were common throughout the Victorian period. Plate glass arrived in 1832 - five years before Victoria ascended the throne.

Windows

The Victorians invented a way to make big panes of glass, called ‘sheet glass’. This type of glass arrived in 1832 - five years before Victoria ascended the throne. True Victorian windows had six and later four paned vertical sliding sash windows with a single glazing bar down the middle.

Many owners of Victorian houses have today changed their windows to more modern ones.

Victorians also loved to decorate

their windows.

Examples of Bay Windows

Bay Windows (windows that projects, normally with flat front and slant sides) were very fashionable in Victorian times. Typical Victorian bay windows are three sided. The

ground floor bay window often had its own slate roof, or it might continue into a first-floor bay,

again topped with an individual roof.

Houses were often decorative with fancy brickwork.

Decorative Brick Work

Decorative Wooden panels (bargeboards)

Decorative roof tops

Photographs of Victorian Houses

Victorian Mansion

(Oakwood House in Maidstone)

Semi-detached Victorian Villas

Elegant Victorian Terraced Houses

Semi-detached Victorian houses

A Victorian School

Inside Victorian Houses

Many people in Victorian times lived in homes without any of the modern comforts we take for granted today. People had to manage without central heating or hot water from the tap – instead they had open fires and heated water on a big cooker called a range.

Most Victorian houses had a fireplace in every room.

This photograph above shows a small iron cast range.

Without vacuum cleaners or washing-machines, looking after the home was very hard work.

Poor HomesPoor people in Victorian times lived in horrible cramped conditions in run-down houses, often with the whole family in one room.

Many people during the Victorian years moved into the cities and towns to find work in the factories. People crowded into already crowded houses. Rooms were rented to whole families or perhaps several families.

Most poor houses only had one or two rooms downstairs and one or two upstairs. Families would crowd into these rooms, with several in each room and some living in the cellars.

Tin Bath

Poorer families, if they owned a bath at all, put it in front of the kitchen rang. This was the warmest place in the house and very close to hot water. The whole family would wash themselves one after the other, topping up with more water but, probably not emptying the bath until everyone had finished.

These houses had no running water or toilets. Each house would share an outside water pump. The water from the pump was frequently polluted.

water pump

Some streets would have  one or two outside toilets for t he whole street to share!

Houses were built close together with narrow streets between them and open sewers running down the middle of the streets. Rubbish was tipped into the streets. It was no surprise that few children made it to adulthood.

Homes for the middle classes and the upper classes were much better. They were better built and were larger. The houses had most of the new gadgets installed, such as flushing toilets, gas lighting, and inside bathrooms.

Rich Homes

Wealthy Victorians decorated their homes in the latest styles. There would be heavy curtains, flowery wallpaper, carpets and rugs, ornaments, well made furniture, paintings and plants. The rooms were heated by open coal fires and lighting was provided by candles and oil or gas lamps. Later in the Victorian period, electricity became more widespread and so electric lights were used.

Rich Victorian had water pumps in their kitchens and their rubbish was taken away down into underground sewers.

Most rich people had servants and they would live in the same house. They slept on the top floor of the house or in the attic. The servant

rooms were often cold in the winter and stuffy in the summer.

LightingCandles continued to be an important source of lighting. Paraffin lamps were introduced in the 1860s, and gas lighting became increasingly common as the century went on.

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