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Chapter Two Understanding Weymouth's |
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Before we look in more detail at many of Weymouth's Georgian seafront buildings it is helpful to have a general understanding of how
Georgian architecture developed and the techniques that were employed by the architects and builders. The key design features of Georgian
architecture were proportion, order and symmetry - and Weymouth's seafront terraces reflect these characteristics. The architects who designed the
buildings did not work in isolation - in fact their designs were based upon typical house designs that were being used at the time in many parts of the
country. The Georgian building era was spread over such a long period of time that it has been conveniently divided into three periods - the early Georgian
being 1715 to 1770, the mid Georgian being 1770 to about 1810 and the late Georgian or Regency period being from 1810 to 1840. The Weymouth architect James Hamilton worked mostly during the mid-Georgian period of 1770 to 1810, although the building of Weymouth's seafront occupied a period stretching from 1770 to 1855. George III was actually on the throne from 1760 until 1820, George IV from 1820 to 1830, William IV from 1830 to 1837 and Queen Victoria's reign lasted from 1837 until 1901. The first Georgian buildings along Weymouth's seafront were commissioned by wealthy businessmen who had also been involved in the rapid development of the City of Bath, in Somerset. It is probably that they initially employed architects that had been involved in designing the Georgian houses of Bath - perhaps people such as Thomas Baldwin or John Pinch. However, there are very few documentary clues left to indicate who exactly the early Weymouth architects were. Comparison of design details between some of the buildings in Bath and those in Weymouth have so far provided very little firm evidence of a connection. The reader may like to compare a few of the typical house designs of John Pinch (see below) with some of the actual Weymouth house designs included at Annex A. |
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Locally based
architects such as James Hamilton must have quickly
become involved in the development of the seafront and
Hamilton's contribution is reasonably well documented.
Unfortunately, very little evidence has been found so far
to identify the many other local architects that must
also have been involved over the several decades of
development. Weymouth's seafront housing expansion during the second half of the eighteenth century took place at a time of swelling English civic pride, linked to a growing understanding of Classical Greek and Roman architecture, brought about by a few English architects who travelled widely abroad with their well heeled gentlemen-patrons. There was a growing desire to adapt what had been learnt on these travels to the needs of the English people and as a consequence a recognisable vernacular architectural style known as Georgian English slowly developed in this country. It blended the classic designs from Greece and Italy with the plain, stone-dressed brick architecture of mid-17th century Dutch buildings, including their sash window designs. |
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It
was a period when numerous scholarly books on
architecture were being published and consequently many
of the great houses built in the early years of the
eighteenth century in this country were
re-interpretations of the great European houses of the 16th
century. In particular the work of the 16th
century Italian architect Andrea Palladio was widely
acclaimed and his ideas were incorporated into English
designs - becoming known as Anglo-Palladian
style. The most extravagant example nearest to Weymouth
is Prior Park at Bath, designed by John
Wood the Elder - a magnificent Palladian style country
house built for Ralph Allen between 1735
and 1748. This was the same Ralph Allen who in later
years was to "discover" Weymouth as a seaside
health spa. Paradoxically, the Palladian movement
occurred simultaneously with the emergence of the
Georgian architectural vernacular and it's influence left
its mark. |
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Palladian architectural ideas were applied not only to houses but to the relationship of one building to another within towns and cities. Some of the best examples are in Bath where John Wood and his son linked numerous town houses into grand crescents and squares. The facade of such terraces often competed with pedimented (gabled) central sections and flanking wings, with shallow projections, recalling palatial palace facades - but the urban forms of the blocks were very much those of ancient Rome. Notable examples in Bath are the Queen’s Square, the Circus (begun in 1754) and the Royal Crescent (built between 1767 and 1775). These form a collection of streets, terraces and crescents which are the best in Europe. The most common Georgian town-house designs were of three storeys, sometimes four, plus an attic in the roof. Some typical elevations designed by John Pinch of Bath have been mentioned. These can be compared with the illustration of a typical Weymouth seafront house from the terrace called Royal Crescent, which was designed by James Hamilton. If space was at a premium at the site, then a basement was included in the house design. Square or rectangular in plan, they invariably had a central entrance hall (not so true in Weymouth), and the ground floor was raised above the pavement to admit more light into the basement from a railing area. The entrance door was approached by a flight of steps. The doorway was usually arched, with a fanlight to let more light into the inside hallway and it was the only part of the exterior with any elaboration - sometimes simple flanking pilasters (a projecting rectangular column) and a crowning pediment (gable) and sometimes a projecting porch with columns and entablature (a decorated lintel). It was this repetition of identical front doors and porches that marked the rhythm along the street. The roofs and attics were almost hidden behind a parapet to guard the eaves because after 1774 exposed timber was banned as a fire hazard. The basement was used to house the kitchen, servant’s rooms and the cellars; the ground floor usually contained the dining room and a sitting room; the first floor accommodated a drawing room at the front, whilst the rest of the house was taken up with bedrooms; the attic was reserved for servants. |
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By 1770 brick was the primary building material but many ground storeys were given plaster or render finishes (stucco), which was then scored and painted to look like stone (rusticated). When Weymouth's Victoria Terrace was built advantage was taken of the nearby white ashlar limestone from the quarries at Portland. The
"Standard" Georgian town house built in
Weymouth was three window bays wide, the
windows of the first floor, where the main living rooms
were placed, being taller than the others. These windows,
running almost from floor to ceiling, were usually twice
as high as they were wide and invariably gave
access to a stone or wrought-iron balcony.
On the upper floors the windows were generally smaller.
The proportional rule of thumb for windows of smaller,
predominantly two storey town houses, was for them to be
equally proportioned on both floors, their height being
between one and a quarter and one and three quarters
times their breadth, with six panels per sash. One of the
windows on the ground floor was usually replaced by the
front door. As the eighteenth century progressed the sash
window bars became progressively more slender
and the window reveals were set back and plastered and
painted white, to emphasise the regularity of the design. |
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Alongside or between the stairs were the main rooms on each floor (sometimes linked by folding doors in the case of the first floor drawing room). Chimneys were usually built within the thickness of the flanking walls, the chimney breast thus projecting into the rooms. The basic intention of the terrace was to give an impression of unity and the English took "regularity" in its ordinary house designs to a greater degree than any other country. This unity was emphasised by a plaque proclaiming the name of the terrace. The names were taken from a fairly narrow range of fashionable personalities - first and foremost the Royal family or nobility but also from localities of high standing like Kensington in London. The names of Weymouth's terraces follow the pattern of Royal names such as Charlotte Row (after the Queen and Princess) but there are also some family names celebrating the early speculative developers from Bath ie Pulteney Buildings and Johnstone Row. It was during the mid-Georgian period that Robert Adam and his brother James published the first of two volumes of "Work in Architecture of Robert and James Adam" (1773 and 1779). This publication standardised a range of details and ornamental design used to decorate entrances, fireplaces, ceilings and wall friezes. The cleverness of these compositions was that moulds could be formed and the details applied permanently, resulting in the mass production of stick-on-mouldings by many manufacturers. |
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Adam's interiors are the most striking, with unusual shaped circular, oval or apsidal ended rectangular rooms. Decorated work exploited low relief, ceilings were painted in pastel colours and largely white stucco decoration was highlighted by touches of gilt. Typical decorations are groups of flute, pendants, wheat-ear and the anthemion or Greek honeysuckle. The principal room had a low dado rail painted around, whilst the walls themselves were generally colour washed. Much of this standardisation of Georgian house design can be traced back to the introduction of building legislation in London after the Great Fire there in 1666. Over a period of years restrictions were gradually imposed on such things as the height of rooms, structural thickness of party and external walls, and the size of timbers for floors and roofs. An important part of the legislation was the appointment of District Building Surveyors. It was as a result of the new fire regulations that roofs which typically had decorative eaves and cornices were now hidden by a parapet wall. Additional legislation saw the window tax introduced in 1695 and it was not repealed until 1851. To avoid excessive payments of the tax a few house owners blocked up their windows, but they were also used to achieve symmetry. Such dummy (blind) windows are common in the Georgian houses of Weymouth, the most obvious being at Devonshire Buildings next to the Pavilion. |
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In the mid-eighteenth century sanitary conditions were appalling, with an virtual absence of sewers. Household waste, including that from the privy, fed into open ditches and thence to cesspools and on into the sea, the harbour or the backwater. Only the larger town houses had a privy or closet erected over a cesspit in the back yard or garden. It was not unknown for ladies to walk out into the garden on some pretext and under the protection of their hooped skirt do what was necessary. At night there were commodes in the bedrooms, whilst in most dining rooms there was a set of chamber pots hidden behind curtains or in a cupboard ..."for the relief of gentlemen after dinner". The first water closets were invented around 1775 but the overall situation did not improve until the development of public drainage systems in the late 19th century. In Weymouth very few houses had mains water supply although Harvey’s Guide of 1800 recorded that ".....this town is now generally supplied with water from one of nature’s purest fountains from a place about five miles distant called the Boiling Rock. The primary source of lighting at night was candlelight, rushlight or lanterns. Most poor families could not afford candles and used rushes dipped in mutton fat - a system in use since Roman times. Heating was by an open fireplace using coal in a cast iron basket, but much of the heat was lost up the chimney and draughts were always a problem. Another major innovation was the increasing incorporation within the overall house layout of a garden - and the Georgian garden heralded the start of the modern English passion for gardening.
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