Gaelen Foley, Historical Romance, History

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A Regency Glossary:
A By-No-Means Comprehensive Explication of Historical Terms and Concepts You'll Encounter In My Books

Note: This page will be an ongoing project. For in-depth study, please refer to the research links at the bottom of the next page. My purpose here is a simple overview for non-history majors. Subjects to be covered in future sections will include the peerage, types of carriages, servants, famous people, amusements, etc.

Lesson Five Regency Homes Cont'd - Page 3

INTERIOR
Ground Floor. If you came to pay an afternoon social call on the lady of the house, you would have been greeted at the front door by the butler and upon stepping inside the townhouse, would find yourself in the lobby or entrance hall of the home-what we would call a foyer. This space was intended to make a strong first impression on the viewer, and it has been noted that the ground or main floor of the townhouse tended to have a somewhat masculine tone. Marble flooring was not uncommon in the entrance hall-practical as well as beautiful in a potentially muddy, high-traffic area. The classic pattern of black and white marble squares was popular, as were pillars that might appear to be of exotic marble, but Regency designers were not above using faux finishes to simulate expensive materials. What rooms would you have found on the ground floor?
Certainly, one of the first rooms you'd see if you were nosy enough to peek around while the butler took your wrap was the dining room. In almost every townhouse whose floor plan I've studied, the dining room sits at the front of the house on the ground floor. In fact, it always seems to be to the right of the entrance hall. The dining room is one of the family's two main, public rooms where they could put real effort into impressing their guests, so the furniture and detailing will reflect the best the family can afford. Common desirable features for dining rooms included: a finely carved, marble fireplace, pilasters with elaborate cornices, a gilded frieze, possibly more pillars, crystal wall sconces, a ceiling medallion from which hung an elaborate chandelier, mahogany furniture, silver and china on display around the room, preferably hand-painted with the family crest. Rich colors were chosen for the decor. Paint was preferred for dining room walls because fabric wall-hangings could absorb food smells. The floor was usually hardwood with a parquetry border.
	Red and gold carpet with intricate parquetry border made up of a variety of fine woods. This is in the grand banqueting gallery inside Apsley House, where Wellington celebrated his victory at Waterloo with his fellow veterans each year on the battle's anniversary.

The back room on the ground level (remember, less formal in back) was likely to be a library, which would often double as the study or office of the man of the house.

This library at Bowood House is inside the magnificent country house shown at the start of this article (with the garden) rather than a townhouse, but it's such a perfect example of the romantic libraries so beloved in our genre that I had to show it to you. At least it'll give you an idea.

If the family did not care to display its intellectual pursuits, there could be a morning room instead of a library. A morning room was an informal parlor similar in feel to a modern "family room," much in contrast to the fancy, formal drawing room upstairs.
Morning was private time for Regency families. It was said that the fashionable world did not wake up until ten o'clock; indeed, one o'clock in the afternoon was considered the earliest possible hour for a social call and that, only for visits from one's most intimate friends. Other friends could come at two, while more formal acquaintances were welcome at three or after. By five, of course, one had to appear splendidly arrayed in Hyde Park to see and be seen, either driving one's equipage or taking an elegant promenade. Tough life!

Staircase.

The staircase was a focal point of the townhouse and key architectural feature that provided yet another place to make a statement about the family's status. Stairs in olden times were shallower than those built today. This allowed ease of movement for ladies in long gowns, and though I'm not convinced this is true, they say people in previous centuries were a good deal shorter than we are today, so they required shorter steps because they had shorter legs. It sounds like malarkey to me, but you can be the judge of that!

The bottom of the staircase was a popular place to mount a large, impressive piece of statuary. Perhaps the most amusing example of this is the ten-foot nude Napoleon at the foot of the spectacular staircase in Apsley House, the London home of the Duke of Wellington.

Many Regency staircases strike even the modern viewer as something of an engineering miracle. White marble slabs are anchored into the wall and rest one upon the other just so, with no visible supports, so that the whole staircase seems to unfurl magically in a flowing spiral or weightless zigzag up to the next floor.

Lacy wrought-iron balusters were most popular to accent these magnificent staircases, and could have either a wrought-iron or mahogany bannister. On staircases that had a landing where the stairs switched back or turned, a huge, grand lamp or torchiere is often seen.

The Regency Town House in Brunswick Square, Hove, that you just visited has a waiting room that opens up off the staircase landing. Rather than having the guest wait in the lobby, this room functioned as a sort of holding tank where the visitor could check herself in the mirror before being shown up the rest of the stairs to her hostess in the drawing room.

First Floor.

And so, we have finally arrived at the fanciest floor in the house, with the tall windows. We've come up a flight of stairs, true, but don't call it the second floor. In England, this is referred to as the first floor. You've probably read scenes in historical romances where "they went down to dinner." Here is why. For dinner parties, the arriving guests would be shown up to the drawing room until everyone had arrived, and then, when dinner was served, they would "go down" to dinner in the dining room, which we already looked at below.

In contrast to the ground floor, the first floor has a lighter, more feminine tone. The decor is more likely to be in light hues with silk wall-hangings. Though many have beautiful hardwood floors with intricate parquet borders, wall-to-wall carpet was not uncommon for Regency drawing rooms. On the first floor, the front room was almost always the drawing room; the back room could be a second drawing room, salon, or a formal music room. It was quite common to have folding doors between the two rooms that could be opened up to create one large space for entertaining.

As mentioned earlier, the first floor had the tallest ceilings, often painted with garlands, medallions, or other light, airy designs, and usually boasted impressive chandeliers. Light was an important feature, so drawing rooms tended to have plenty of mirrors. The first floor also had the tallest windows, which, rather than running flat against the wall, were set back in window alcoves about a foot deep. This allowed space to fold back the delicate interior shutters or "Venetian blinds" that were as popular then as they are today. (Modern manufacturers often call them "plantation shutters.")

When the blinds were opened, one often discovered a pair of French windows here rather than casement windows, i.e., you could turn a latch and swing the French windows open like a slender pair of double doors, rather than having to slide the casement up to let the breeze in. Upon opening the French windows, you could take a step out onto that tiny wrought-iron balcony that we spotted from the street.

I would think that two people at the most could stand on one of those balconies at the same time-they're tiny, more for enjoying the view rather than the way we'd use a modern outdoor deck.

Time for another stop on our Web Tour: This time, the destination is Prinny's own townhouse in Bath, the glorious end unit, #1 Royal Crescent. Their website offers you a mini-tour at this link:
http://www.bath-preservation-trust.org.uk/museums/no1/tour.html

Second Floor.

The second floor featured the best bedchambers in the townhouse. These rooms are out of the public eye, so while they were still highly comfortable and attractive, there is not the level of conspicuous consumption apparent in the drawing and dining rooms. The ceilings are the same height as the ground floor or lower; nice but simple fireplaces; plain hardwood floors with area rugs, or wall to wall carpet. Wallpaper or fabric wall hangings were popular for bedrooms.

It was not uncommon for man and wife to have separate bedrooms, often connected by a dressing room. Sometimes the lady also had a "boudoir" or sitting room adjoining her bedchamber, which functioned as her office. Here she could meet with her top servants to give instructions, work out her social calendar with her secretary, answer her correspondence, or receive informal visits from her closest female friends or family members. Finally, if the townhouse were built in the later part of the Regency and could boast a flushable indoor water closet, it would likely be located on this floor.

Third Floor.

The third and topmost floor of the Regency townhouse held bedrooms for junior family members and/or top-ranking servants like the housekeeper, cook, or governess. If there were young children in the family, the nursery would also be located here, with adjoining accommodations for the nurse and her helper, the nursery maid.

Well, now you've seen the Regency townhouse from outside to inside and bottom to top, and having come so far you deserve a grand reward. I can now reveal that I've saved the best till last, like any crafty novelist. *grin* In fact, I found the mother-lode of all websites for our purposes, and I will now send you to the links below. You are going to have a field day with this.

Locationworks is a company that helps moviemakers find the right locations for their movies. They have a treasure trove of Georgian-era townhouses that is richly worth perusing. Have fun. Come back when you can drag yourself away. But first...

In closing, the townhouse model worked so well for Londoners that building proliferated, with the result that by the Victorian era, people were complaining that the city had become a soulless maze of drab, endless monotony. Worse, the neat pale stucco of Regency townhouses had turned gray and depressingly dingy by mid-century as the Industrial Revolution spawned innumerable smokestacks atop factories and steam trains, puffing out black clouds of pollution. The gleaming neoclassical Regency had already begun to fade into the fog of Victorian coal-dust.

View Locationsworks Library Images at:

Start here. Whole page of various Georgian townhouses. Click on any one and it'll lead you to interior photos of each. It'll bring what we're talking about here to life!
http://www.locationworks.com/library/cat/09/02/s08-01.html

Another townhouse from Locationworks. -- Central London.
http://www.locationworks.com/library/pix/49/02/1/1/1/33.html

White exterior townhouse with interior shots, stairs, dining room, hallways, etc. Some modern decor mixed in, but worth a look! Architectural features in place.
http://www.locationworks.com/library/pix/49/02/1/1/2/01.html

And just for fun, don't miss these pics of a yummy Georgian ballroom. Most people would not have had a ballroom in their homes---that's why they needed places like Almack's and other Assembly Rooms where they could hold dances. Still, this will at least give you an idea of what those ballrooms looked like. Until next time!
http://www.locationworks.com/library/pix/49/02/1/1/1/33/05.html

http://www.locationworks.com/library/pix/49/02/1/1/1/33/06.html

SOURCES

Creese, Marilyn. The Regency Townhouse. The Brunswick Town Charitable
Trust, 2000.

Eastwood, Gail. "Be It Ever So Humble: The London Town House." The
Regency Plume. Part I of article in Vol. 4, No. 5 (Jan/Feb '95). Part II of
article in Vol. 4, No. 6 (Mar/Apr 1995).

Hibbert, Christopher and Ben Weinreb. The London Encyclopedia. 1993.

Margetson, Stella. Regency London. 1971.

Parissien, Steven. Regency Style. Phaidon, 1992.

Summerson, John. Georgian London: An Architectural Study. 1970.

FOR FURTHER READING

A brief overview of Regency architecture:
www.britainexpress.com/History/regency/regency-architecture.htm

Discussions on two of the most important Georgian architects:
www.britainexpress.com/History/nash.htm

www.britainexpress.com/History/robert_adam.htm

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Archive:
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Singular Wills Regency Homes The English Peerage Regency Glossary

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