London Real Estate

Buying a Victorian house means living in a property that was built at the very apex of the British Empire - a time when comfort and style were of paramount importance to the wealthy individual. The eclectic mix of Victorian building styles that emerged in this iconic era can make any such purchase today an exciting and tricky affair. It is a chance to buy a property with unique features, superior in many ways to today's modern housing. In this article we will take a look at Victorian architecture´s main influences, the differing styles that resulted, how to spot an authentic Victorian property and how to maintain or improve upon that unique Victorian look.
The Victorian Era in Britain
The Victorian era in Britain lasted some 64 years, covering the reign of Queen Victoria from 1837 to 1901. In terms of change and modernisation, it was perhaps the most radical period in British history to date. When Queen Victoria came to power, Britain was an agrarian, rural society. By the time she died, Britain was a highly industrialised world power connected internally by an extensive railway network and overseas by a seaborne empire.

Emerging Victorian philosophical concepts converged to produce a number of contradictory building styles which reflected any one or a combination of new values and aspirations. The vast amount of money flowing into Britain from the colonies abroad and that being generated by emergent industrialisation saw massive amounts of building work undertaken and much of this was excess to demand. Spare money was often poured into frivolous ornamentation - its is from here that the phrase a man´s home is his castle harks. The result for Victorian house styles? More religious influences and an array of architectural philosophies such as Mock Tudor, Gothic Revival, Queen Anne, Tudorbeathen and the all famous Arts and Crafts Movement.

Georgian Property and there owners
Not so Cluaran Bridges, who can't bear the thought of her 18th-century, Palladian mansion being MDF-ed to death the minute she has moved out.
"It's a beautiful, historic house and I've had 11 happy years here," she says. "I know it sounds ridiculous, but I really do want my home to go to a good home." Which is why, in her search for the perfect purchaser, Mrs Bridges has turned not to her local agents in Iver, Buckinghamshire, but to the altogether more aesthetically-minded.

The Edwardian era was a period of revivalism, taking ideas from the mediaeval and Georgian periods, among others. The ethos of eclectic designers had won; houses mixed and matched many influences.
The Edwardian period was from 1901 to 1910, the reign of King Edward VII, although in architectural style, it effectively means through to 1918.
The Queen Anne style remained in vogue into the early Edwardian period. The influence of the Arts and Crafts movement meant that vernacular traditions remained but new styles were adopted, including a new version of English 18th century classical, in other words neo-Georgian. The wealthier patrons of architects and designers persisted with French classical styles, particularly Louis XVI.
In the years between 1910 and 1914, the middle classes were happy to pick and mix Louis XVI influences, Elizabethan panelling, Tudor beams, Arts and Crafts, as well as Moorish influences.
House designs of these first few years of the 20th century were:
an evolution of the Victorian terrace with Art Nouveau influences in fireplaces, light fittings, stained glass and door furniture
a Tudor style, taking ideas from the Arts and Crafts movement, with rough cast walls, small paned leaded windows, magpie-work and rustic bricks
houses with Jacobean details such as gargoyles, heraldic devices, mullioned windows, studded doors and Dutch gables
neo-Georgian with large bays and sash windows, columns and pilasters
Writers continued to attack this jumble and looked for a new national style. However, pure Arts and Crafts products were too expensive and not available in sufficient quantity. Many furniture and building products were therefore machine-made, influenced by Arts and Crafts styles. For example the mock Tudor cottage look, sometimes called the 'Quaint' style, appeared from the late 1890s but was scorned by 1910. Needless to say, it persisted, and has continued to the present day.
The battles between the designer camps continued; Art Nouveau - and its Scottish variation - was reviled by Voysey and Walter Crane.
Houses had wider frontages so there was often more room for a hall; in larger houses this was even used as a living room. For example it would be furnished with a desk and perhaps even a fireplace.
The underlying themes of buildings and interior design of the Edwardian era were for expensive simplicity and sunshine and air. Colours and detailing were lighter than in the late 19th century, looking back to the Georgian era of a century before. The desire for cleanliness continued. As gas and then electric light became more widespread, walls could be lighter as they did not get so dirty and looked better in the brighter light. Decorative patterns were less complex; both wallpaper and curtain designs were more plain.
There was less clutter than in the Victorian era. Ornaments were perhaps grouped rather than everywhere. Displays of flowers were placed to complement the floral fabrics and wallpapers.
They stand astride the headquarters of the agency's parent body, the Georgian Group, a 70-year-old charitable organisation (the president is the Prince of Wales), which is dedicated to the preservation of all historical structures built from about 1660 to 1830. What's more, any money made by the estate agency wing goes towards funding the charity's work - providing advice and grants for restoration work, plus employing four full-time caseworkers to go round the country advising on any planning applications affecting a Georgian property.
While the level of architectural appreciation shown by the everyday agent extends to writing "period features" in the sales blurb, the men and women from the Georgian Group can talk for hours on cornices alone.
"The thing that impressed me was how excited they were about coming here," says Mrs Bridges, whose home is for sale at £6.5 million. "They were delighted because they hadn't previously known of this house's existence. You felt like they'd just found buried treasure." The same gusts of enthusiasm blew through poet Mary Travis's terrace home in the Old Naval Dockyard, Sheerness, when the agents came to visit. "They were fascinated by even the tiniest details," she says. "They even insisted on going out on the fourth-floor roof. You have to be pretty keen to do that, believe me.
"I would hate this house to be bought by someone who was going to rip everything out and paint it in horrible colours. We've always been careful to do things in a way I like to think the house approves of - we boil water in an old copper kettle and we light a proper fire in winter." Perfectly standard behaviour, says the Georgian Group's director Robert Bargery, who frequently carries out the inspections himself (all vendors get an architectural appraisal thrown in).
"Georgian homeowners often see themselves not so much as proprietors, but as custodians of the property," he says. "Many are wary of making changes. I know of owners who use portable heaters because they don't want to damage the house's fabric by installing central heating." And when people are so finely tuned to their house's sensibilities, the idea of advertising it in the window of a high-street estate agent seems just too crude to contemplate. Which is where the Georgian Group comes in - discreetly, of course.
'We have a number of owners who don't want to go for full publicity when they are selling their house," says Michael Bidnell, the organisation's research and information officer. "At the same time, we are in touch with another group of people who are quietly looking for Georgian houses to buy.
"The reason we started the estate agency side of the charity, this spring, was because so many of our members felt that, with conventional estate agents, their properties were being marketed in a production-line way. Time and again, potential vendors were approaching us to find buyers who would appreciate their house and the care with which it had been restored." At present, there are barely two dozen properties on the website, so with an estimated 400,000 Georgian homes in the country, there is clearly room for growth. However, whereas most estate agencies would be seeking to open branches all over the country, Georgian
"There are a lot of Georgian houses in urgent need of repair, many of them unoccupied," says Mr Bargery. "Not only would we like to find buyers for these at-risk properties, but we would be prepared to cut our normal commission fee in order to do so.
"Whatever damage has been carried out in the past, either at the hands of human beings or nature, we take the view that no property is beyond redemption."