REGENCY DESIGN PRECEPTS A guide to design in the context of Cheltenham’s Regency buildings 1 CONTENTS Scope and Purpose of the Guide 3 ORIE General Principles Duality 4 Additions and Extensions 4 Principles for Regency Buildings Local Characteristics 4 Windows 4 Cornices and Entablatures 8 Stonework 9 Render and Stucco 9 Railings and Garden Walls 10 Chimneys 12 Front Doors 13 Painting 13 Balconies 15 Garages and Outhouses 15 Index 16 Cover: Oriel Terrace 2 A GUIDE TO DESIGN IN THE CONTEXT OF CHELTENHAM’S REGENCY BUILDINGS Fig.1a Illustrating architectural terms (cf Precept 23) and the avoidance of duality owing to an odd number of windows, the middle one with an architrave, central above the front door and porch. Also showing the appropriate use of different paint tones (Precept 47) SCOPE AND PURPOSE OF THE GUIDE quite ‘right’ or ‘comfortable’ a check to see if it Most Georgian buildings embrace such consistent conforms to the precepts may point to an design characteristics that some can be identified appropriate solution. It should in any case prove a as norms. By continuing to observe these norms good starting point in an area of design where there when altering a Regency building, or when is debate or uncertainty. Of course not all the designing anew in this Georgian idiom, one is more precepts are always followed in Cheltenham’s likely to produce works which are appropriate and original Regency buildings, nor do they need to be. are pleasing to the eye, or which at least do not For example many attractive buildings have even debase our architectural inheritance nor detract numbers of window (contrary to Precept 1 on from a Regency context. Approval under planning duality, below) because they only have room for two legislation, where required, would therefore be more windows. likely to be forthcoming. The advice given here relates only to the exterior of This guide uses these norms to set out 50 the building, the area over which there are normal numbered precepts (in bold italics) which can be planning controls. Alterations and other works to used on building projects in a Regency context, not the interior, although important, are not subject to only in a Regency style, but on traditional building control under planning legislation unless the forms in a nineteenth-century setting and for repairs building is listed. Nor does this advice cover details and alterations to existing buildings. If a design or of technical or structural considerations such as use alteration in these circumstances does not seem of lime mortars or double glazing. 3 The Regency Period covers the last nineteen years, consistent period or style. The principle applies from 1811–1830, of the Georgian Period which had normally, and indeed particularly in the case of a started in 1714. Stylistically, however, and for the prominent site, such as at a corner. purpose of this Cheltenham guide, ‘Regency’ is taken to include the subsequent reign of William IV and the first twenty years or so of Queen Victoria’s PRINCIPLES FOR REGENCY BUILDINGS. reign, which started in 1830. So ‘Regency Style’ is relevant to Cheltenham from about 1800–1850. LOCAL CHARACTERISTICS 4 Consider the particular nature of GENERAL PRINCIPLES. Cheltenham’s Regency architecture before There are some principles which apply to most undertaking an alteration or addition to an buildings. existing building or designing a reproduction Regency building. DUALITY Although the Regency style of building is 1 Group features together horizontally in odd recognisable throughout the country there are numbers. variations from one place to another. There are The eye naturally seeks a satisfactory resting place differences even between Cheltenham and or focus. ‘Duality’ occurs where an elevation Gloucester in this period. There may be a trend for consists of two approximately even and equal architects, used to Nash’s heavier and grander halves – two mirror images – the eye does not know London buildings, to propose designs here lacking on which to settle. The effect is a restless and the light, Greek-revival touch of Regency unsatisfactory duality. A focus is required to join the Cheltenham: a genteel country resort, where villas two at the centre. A central porch might be a simple were known as ‘cottages’. solution or, on a grander building, a central pediment. WINDOWS 5 The windows of Regency Cheltenham are A building’s pervasive features are usually its vertically sliding timber sashes divided into windows. Where they are aligned vertically, and in smaller panes. an odd number of vertical rows, then the central row This is a defining characteristic which needs to be will provide the required focus for the eye. In retained in any replacement or reproduction, as set Cheltenham’s more imposing buildings this central out below. row could be emphasised by a window with a bolder ‘architrave’ (Fig.1); sometimes the front door was 6 Windows should not only be vertical in placed in line with central windows. Even if there is proportion, but each pane of glass needs to be no extra emphasis provided by a central feature, still vertical too. (Fig.1) the odd number will reduce any awkward duality. Top floors can prove the exception, where square windows may be found, especially on four-storey This norm of odd numbers applies to all vertical houses and on attic floors, above the main cornice; features on a building with the exception of columns even there, however, each pane will still probably and pilasters. In these cases it is the spaces be a vertical rectangle, using just three panes per between the columns (usually occupied by sash. windows) which need to be in odd numbers between an even number of columns. ADDITIONS & EXTENSIONS 2 Extensions to existing buildings should not normally project above or in front of the original building. Where it is neither desirable nor practicable for an addition to be designed simply as a continuation of the main building in the same form and with equivalent details, it is usually appropriate for the extension to be designed as architecturally subservient, often with a lower roof line and the main facade set further back. 3 New buildings inserted into a street should similarly pay respect both to their neighbours and to the predominant pattern of development, not extending beyond the height nor the building-line of either their neighbours or of the street norm. Fig.2 Square window with three panes per sash, This is especially important where the street is of a Montpellier Retreat 4 In a rear basement the kitchen window was 8 Windows should normally be aligned sometimes widened to a horizontal proportion to vertically and evenly spaced laterally. increase light penetration under a low ceiling. There is, however, often an exception on the ground floor of those terrace houses which are two windows wide. This is because the internal symmetry of a window in a room was generally considered even more important than the external symmetry of the facade. A central door in a hall of normal width, close to the side of a house, could not normally line up with a window central to a wider room above. Furthermore the space left by the entrance hall for the adjoining, ground floor front room differed from the rooms above, being neither the full width nor half the width of the facade. The window central to this ground floor room consequently did not align with the windows above. Fig.3 Unusually wide, horizontal window in a basement kitchen, Montpellier Retreat 7 Windows will normally have the same width within a single facade, but on each floor the windows, while consistent in height on the, individual floor, should be of a different height from the windows of the floors above and below. (Fig. 5) This variation reflected the relative importance of the rooms on each floor; it also enlivened the overall Fig.5 Off-centre ground floor windows, London design. In a two-storey house the taller windows terrace by J.B. Papworth, c 1825. were on the ground floor. In a three- storey house the tallest windows were on the first floor (or ‘piano In pairs of semi-detached houses this problem was nobile’), the second tallest on the ground floor and often avoided by locating front doors in a porch at the shortest on the second floor. On the ground the side of the building. The windows to all floors floor of some houses (normally of two storeys) there could then line through, but duality was not can be an exception to window widths since on that resolved. floor marginal lights were sometimes added on each side, beyond the main sash frame (Figs.1 & 4). Fig.6 Doors to the sides of semi-detached houses allow windows to line through, but at the risk of duality, Montpellier Villas 9 Windows at the side of a building should not be close to the corner. They should preferably be at least a window’s width Fig.4 Marginal sashes, Suffolk Parade from the corner (Fig.6, above), although a space of two thirds of a window’s width can suffice. Windows 5 too close to the edge of the building make the whole and at basement or third floor levels, occupied edifice appear weak. mainly by servants and children (Fig.18). 10 The limited sash window dimensions 12 Glazing bars in a replacement Regency available from some modern catalogues, can window or in a new building in a Regency style prove inappropriately small for a typical should not exceed 18mm width. Alternatively it Regency building. may sometimes be acceptable to form each There is no rule on the overall size of windows, but sash of a single double glazed unit with if included in a new building of Regency aspirations appropriate, cut-down glazing bars bonded to undersized windows look weak and incongruous, both sides of the glass.