Holland Park Living
Holland Park homes
Here are some of the most important issues relating to Holland Park homes.
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How Holland Park homes have changedSome of the more prestigious Holland Park homes from the Victorian era still remain as houses (usually owned by Middle Eastern oil princes). Many other Holland Park homes were converted to use as embassies. When you consider the number of people working at an embassy, it is amazing to think that a single family would have occupied the house in Victorian times. Many Holland Park homes were originally stables. This is the case with all original mews houses which were built in streets behind the real Holland Park homes. The Victorians would recognise the facades of most Holland Park homes, but be amazed by the change in use behind. Most original Holland Park homes have now been converted into flats. |
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Building regulations for Holland Park homesThe laws introduced to prevent any recurrence of the Great Fire of London banned timber from the outside of all Holland Park homes, and required walls of Holland Park homes to be made of brick or stone. Such Holland Park homes would be far more durable than timbered lath and plaster houses of Tudor and Jacobean times. That is why if you look at the residential areas London it is as if houses were invented by the Georgians. The rules for building Holland Park homes severely restricted the use of wood to reduce fire risk. They couldn’t use wood near chimney flues. |
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Terraces of Holland Park homes in Georgian LondonMost Holland Park homes were built in terraces. Brick homes in terraces was a creation of the Georgian age. By the time Holland Park was being built up in the 19th century typical Holland Park homes were becoming fully stuccoed. The earliest Georgian terraces were uniform in style and symmetrical in layout. The facades of Holland Park homes incorporated classical pilasters, doors and windows crowned with pediments, and decorative mouldings. In the 1720s the “palace fronted terrace” came into fashion for Holland Park homes. The whole terrace was treated as one composition, with a long stuccoed front elevation with pilasters at intervals and a central pediment over the Holland Park homes in the middle. |
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Holland Park homes round garden squaresMost Victorian developments of Holland Park homes followed a similar pattern. Holland Park homes were built in rows, along streets or round specially constructed squares. Holland Park homes might have small front areas, but not considerable front gardens. Most squares were constructed with the Holland Park homes grouped round it and facing onto it. But later Victorian developers, constructed estates with “hidden gardens” between the backs of the Holland Park homes and to which the houses had rear access. |
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Construction of Holland Park homesThe typical London town house was established during the Georgian period and remained more-or-less unchanged until the last quarter of the 19th century. The façade of Holland Park homes would be brick faced, with plain inset sash windows and doors, with a metal balcony at the first floor level. The main structure of such Holland Park homes was a rectangular box, built in stock-brick, and topped with a roof of Welsh slates. The roof of these Holland Park homes was either concealed behind a brick parapet or built in the form of a mansard with dormer windows. A timber frame formed the internal construction of all but the larger Holland Park homes. The joists supporting the floors which ran between the front and back walls of such Holland Park homes were wood. So was the framework of the internal partition walls of Holland Park homes from the ground floor upwards. Brick walls were only used internally at basement level or to support a stone wall-hung staircase, or to give added structural support in particularly large Holland Park homes. |
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Size and height of Holland Park homesThe basic layout and construction of Holland Park homes did not change dramatically throughout the Victorian period. Partly this was because the design worked. For most Holland Park homes there would be a basement with 3 to 5 storeys above. The earliest Holland Park homes had just one room to each floor. So if the frontage of such Holland Park homes was 24 feet wide, the house was usually 24 feet deep. In Georgian times, the standard design of a terraced Holland Park homes changed to the double pile house, meaning the house was two rooms deep on each floor. |
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Different types of Holland Park homesThe Building Act of 1774 classified new Holland Park homes into 4 “rates” depending on the value of the house. Each type of Holland Park homes had its own structural rules. (The poor were not to be as well protected as the rich.) “First rate” Holland Park homes had to have a minimum floor space of 900 square feet. “Second rate” Holland Park homes could be between 500 and 900 square feet. For “third rate” Holland Park homes it was 350 to 500 square feet and for “fourth rate” it was a minimum of 350 square feet. But although the minimum size of Holland Park homes was specified, there was no restriction on the number of people who could live there. |
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The basements of Holland Park homes
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Ground floor of Holland Park homesIn early Georgian times it was normal for the ground floor of Holland Park homes to be for services and servants' accommodation and the first floor was the main floor or 'piano nobile'. But in the Regency period the ground floor of Holland Park homes became the main family floor. The ground storey contained the dining-room, at the side of a narrow entrance hall, and behind it a smaller parlour or morning-room. The dining-room of Holland Park homes might be a little deeper than the front rooms on the upper floors and was sometimes finished with a sideboard recess at its inner end. The rear parlour of Holland Park homes was usually narrower than the dining—room in order to accommodate the extra width of the stairs at the end of the hall. |
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Bedroom floors of Holland Park homesThe bedroom floors of Holland Park homes were usually similar in plan to the living room floors but were sometimes subdivided into smaller rooms, particularly on the top floor. In larger Holland Park homes the stair to the top floor might take the form of a small accommodation stair outside the main stairwell, and in such cases it was normally of timber construction. The owner’s bedroom of Holland Park homes would usually be on the second floor, with provision for children’s rooms and servants’ rooms on this or higher floors in accordance with the scale of the house. |
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