Tell-tale signs that date Victorian era houses

Press, 17 April 1980, Page 17

Tell-tale signs that date Victorian era houses

Appearances were everything in Queen Victoria’s reign. Moral decadence was hidden behind a mask of outward rectitude; and -in matters of style, substance was often overpowered by ornamentation. A Christchurch man who if interested in old houses of the more modest variety has found this to be a positive advantage in dating buildings from the Victorian era. Dr Henry Roberton, of Merivale, took up a suggestion made by the architect, John Hendry, in a talk about the larger houses of Christchurch. He thought a study of the smaller houses would be worthwhile, so Dr Roberton took his camera out and began compiling a record of typical small houses. With many .of them, he was only just in time; they have since been demolished. His next problem was to assign dates -to the examples he found. Some

were provided by the owners, and the rest were dated within a few years by a.retired estate agent, Mr Owen Baker. It was the Victorian passion for ornamentation that enabled him to do so. Mr Baker, who has since died, was intimately associated with the Christchurch property market from the turn of the century, and knew much about the development of particular streets. Builders were remarkably faithful in the Victoria

age to the prevailing fashions in shape, ornament, and materials. By studying these features it was possible to assign a date to a house within five years either way. The following are the identifying characteristics which Dr Roberton has compiled for smaller houses built during Christchurch’s first five decades, and the early years of this century: The 1850 s

The smallest cottages throughout the Victorian era had one or two rooms in front, usually a verandah, and a lean-to kitchen at the back. In the earlier cottages the verandah was continuous with the roof (as in the Deans’ Cottage) .or took off from the roof line at a less steep angle.

The larger cottages were mostly built to a pattern common in the English countryside, a low stud, and an attic with little head-room. Most had .one or two large dormer windows, the ridge level with the roof ridge and the window flush with the wall of the house. The proportions were pleasing to the eye. A very steep narrow stair or a ladder led to the attic. Some had no dormer; the light came from a window at the end. The best surviving example of this is 14 Bass Street. The 1860 s The dormer window, usual in the fifties was still found in the sixties in many of the large houses as well as the small ones. Some of the larger ones had dormer windows of the modern shape. The proportions changed.

Some of the smaller cottages were square in plan, the roof sloping up from each wall. There were also large houses with two storeys, which can be recognised by the upper windows reaching to the roof. These were still found in the seventies.

The “best” houses had high, steeply-pitched roofs with ornate gables. Roundtopped windows were

common. Some had patterns of raised wood on the walls, copied from the Elizabethan period. The fashion of tracery under the gables began in the sixties, probably copied from America. This was also found under the roof at the sides, and over the dormer windows. The earliest tracery consisted of a curved, narrow strip of wood in a wavy line, or a barge-board with a wavy edge. Patterns of cast iron, said to have been used as ballast in the ships, were sometimes used as decoration above the verandah. These were seen throughout the Victorian age, The weather-boards were of unplaned timber, on which saw marks can be seen. Towards the end of the sixties and in the seventies planed weatherboards, with a bevel overlap top and bottom, were sometimes used for the front wall. Another common decoration on the gable was the finial. In the sixties and the eighties it was usually a thick spike, or a short post with a tablet on top. The roof was of shingles or slate. The 1870 s

In the seventies the stud became higher. In some of the single storied houses there was a foot or so of wall between the top of the verandah and the roof. The simple cottage was still being built. The typical large cottage was built to a T-shape plan, with a

lean-to kitchen at the back.

There was tracery under the gable, smaller than that of the sixties, and of many patterns. The most common was a series of curves meeting at points away from the roof. The front, and sometimes the side weather-boards, were of the bevel type, and were ornamented at the corners with slabs of wood to imitate stone quoins. This fashion appeared only in the seventies.

Many -of the larger houses were built in the T shape with two full storeys, and had the decorations described for the smaller ones. In both large and small houses there was usually a bow window at the gable end. This at first took the shape of a half hexagoft; towards the eighties and for the rest of the century it was square-ended.

Another decoration that appeared in the seventies, and was almost always used for the rest of the century, was the line of brackets under the overhang of the roof, in imitation of stone cantilevers. The finial of the seventies was an elongated tulip shape with a ball on top, and another ball under the level of the roof. The 1880 s The houses of the eighties are the hardest to recognise; they are transitional between those of

the seventies and the nineties. The T-shape slowly disappeared, and the houses became fatter and more comfortable in appearance. Some of the more expensive ones had a low-pitched roof with an obtuse angled gable.

Concrete foundations became common from the early eighties. The weather boards were of the modern and dressed type. The bevelled board was still used, and was sometimes much broader than at any other period. At the end of the seventies and in the early eighties the tracery under the gable was replaced by a barge board with ornamental perforations in both large and small houses. A few larger houses still had tracery, which was heavier than that of the seventies. The finial became a heavy spike similar to that of the sixties, but be- 1 came less common. There was often a circular ventilator under the gable, found at no other time. The brackets under the roof were unchanged. Some of the more expensive houses had a bracket supporting the apex of the gable, and big brackets supporting the edge of the roof under the gable.

The sloping shades over the windows, which were also found in the sixties, reappeared, but were not common. The usual fashion was an elaborate top to the windows shaped

like a mantlepiece, supported by large brackets carved in a scroll pattern. Under the lower sill .were small brackets. This ornament continued in the nineties, but became less elaborate. The 1890 s The smaller and me-dium-sized houses were usually single storeyed, and so were some fairly large ones. The old T-pattern of two oblongs joined together became more complicated: there were often two side by side, each with its own pitched roof, with a valley in the middle which was apt to cause leaks. Each had its own gable, and often there was another gable or two at the side. Later, a flat roof in the middle covered the valleys.

The early gable decoration was a" horizontal bar several feet under the apex, intersected by a vertical bar from the apex. Later, the overhang in-> creased, and ornaments of shingles and brackets appeared. sometimes with a scoop-shaped overhang of shingles.

Early 1900 s The general shape of the nineties continued for a few years. The shingles under the gable became less complicated; brackets fell into disuse. Instead, the rafters were continued outside the walls under the over-hang — a sure sign that a house was not Victorian.

The exceptions to this rule are a few much older houses which have needed new roofs in this century. Examples are the Deans’ Cottage, Middleton Grange, and the rebuilt cottage where the Sumner Road crosses the Heathcote River. Red tiles came in at the beginning of the twentieth century.