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But what are the key ingredients that tell us that this
house (above) is a Regency country house just
by looking at it? The first thing that strikes us about
this house is the pleasant broad proportions; it feels
somehow low and wide, whereas 18th century houses tended
to have a more vertical emphasis, with a raised first
floor often approached via steps.
The sash windows of a Regency house were again broader
than their 18th century predecessors and commonly deeper,
extending down to floor level. The tastes of country
gentlemen and women meant they wanted to have a closer
contact with nature and the amenities of garden and
park, so they liked the windows on the ground floor
to allow one to see out better and allow actual access
to a garden, as propounded in the works of the landscape
designer Humphry Repton.
He famously illustrated in Fragments of Theory and
Practise of Landscape Gardening (1816) the contrast
of “the old cedar parlour and the Modern Living
Room”, the former formal and panelled and disconnected
from the outside, but the latter, with bookshelves,
comfortable armchairs and large, wide windows, the room
opening to a winter garden and then to the garden itself.
The house we are looking at here is neo-Classical in
style, that is informed by new theories of Classical
architecture that looked more to the rules and proportions
of the Classical past than models provided by 16th century
Palladio. It would also have been referred to in the
Regency period as a ‘villa’, evoking associations
with the Classical world, and yet it would also have
been seen as ‘modern’.
Above: The influence of the Regency
era is hard to overstate. This Somerset former rectory
(left, excess £1 million) which was built in 1841
draws heavily upon it. Regency and Classical architecture
also had a great influence on early 20th century English
architects (notably Lutyens) as houses such as this
one (inset, Berkshire, £2.1 million guide) demonstrate.
Right: Suffolk, £1.45 million
guide
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It has those key late Georgian and Regency qualities of
symmetry and Classical detailing, but the detailing is
applied sparingly. The porch for instance, has a flat
roof supported by columns with the distinctive qualities
of the Greek Doric order. This was fashionable only in
the very late 18th century and early 19th century, as
a result of new surveys, such as Stuart and Revett’s
Antiquities of Athens, of Greek architecture –
rather than Roman – being widely published. The deep
projecting eaves are another familiar feature of this
period.
White brick is associated with East Anglia, but was also
seen as a more crisp and upmarket product in the Regency
era (one does encounter houses with white brick facades
and red brick for the less significant elevations). The
blind arches, sometimes known as relieving arches, pierced
with windows have the effect of breaking up the austere
and otherwise plain elevations and bringing a certain
cheerfulness to the composition. The one that brings the
eye to the entrance is particularly fun.
Blind arches are a feature often seen in the work of the
great Sir John Soane, a leading Regency architect, whose
museum in Lincoln’s Inn Fields is a good place to
visit to get in tune with the eye and imagination of the
Regency designer and patron. Nash is another hero of the
age, designer of Regent’s Park and the Brighton Pavilion.
This house in Suffolk, designed for a country gentleman
and then passed to his parson son, sums up so much of
what is best about Regency domestic architecture, which
remains good to look on and good to live in.
See also: John Martin Robinson
Regency Country Houses (2005), Christopher Hussey
Country Houses Late Georgian 1800-1840 (1958) and
John Cornforth English Interiors 1790-1848: the Quest
for Comfort (1978) and Steven Parissien Regency
Style (1999).
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