What original features would there have been??

chivers1977

I am buying a 3 bed victorian terraced cottage in a city. One of the ones that doesn't have a front garden as is right on the pavement and has a cellar and loft. Not a town house, I describe it more as a Coronation Street house!!

Anyway, what original features would there have been in there. ie would it have been cast iron fireplaces that are quite narrow and picture rails or dado and marble fireplaces........:beer: :beer: :beer:

thanks

culpepper

Yes narrow fireplaces.Might have had tiles around them but not always.
Picture rails and coving .The coving would have been plaster and probably patterned. We had a sort of mosaic tiled doorstep and I think we had stained glass in the door but it was a long time ago so not sure on that.
Probably sash windows too.
I think the bigger semi/detached houses had more opulent fixtures.

Ken68

The nearest museum would be the best bet, Chivers, or they would put you onto a link.
All what you say, maybe even gas lights.
Also a local reclamation yard would help. Can you give your area.? Oodles on Googles.

chivers1977

It is Chatham in Kent. I don't seem to be googling the right search terms as I'm not really getting anything up. I guess I could snoop at the neighbours when I move in?!

hardpressed

Probably talking to the neighbours as you say would be best. It's a good way to get to know them as well. Period features vary up and down the country. When we lived in a Victorian house the 'front' room was much more elaborate than the back room and the kitchen. Also the biggest bedroom had picture rails but the two other bedrooms didn't.

Counting_Pennies_2

http://www.bbc.co.uk/homes/design/period_victorian.shtml

This might help

BobProperty

Depends on the age of the place, when was it built? Don't forget "Victorian" covers 60 years. Styles changed over that timescale.

Oh, and you might have Encaustic tiles in the door way (I think that's what culpepper was refering to).

chivers1977

The property is 1895. I would so love encaustic tiles to be there! They are the types of homes built for the workers, ie narrow streets to get as many in as poss LOL!

Ken68

http://www.google.co.uk/search?sourceid=navclient&gfns=1&ie=UTF-8&rls=GGLD,GGLD:2006-43,GGLD:en&q=reclamation+yards+chatham+kent

Debt_Free_Chick

Everything you need to know about preserving or replacing Victorian features here. Unfortunately, each booklet is £3! (sorry)

Some limited advice here and here

A couple of pointers ..... yours will have been the home of a working class person - possibly a shipyard worker or a worker in an associated job? So the house would have been modest.

Fire surround - definitely not marble. Far, far too expensive & "posh". Possibly slate - possibly slate painted to look like marble (but I doubt it).

Fireplace - definitely cast iron. Not too ornate. Tiled insert unlikely (but possible).

Woodwork - doors, skirting etc. Would be pine - but definitely NOT stripped. It would have been stained/painted to look like mahoghany or possibly oak.

Encaustic tiled floor - probably. They were invented in the 1840s so I guess they would have been "all the rage" by 1895, even in a modest working class home. Some good examples here

You would find this book fascinating and useful - but not cheap.

HTH

BobProperty

chivers1977 wrote:

The property is 1895. I would so love encaustic tiles to be there! They are the types of homes built for the workers, ie narrow streets to get as many in as poss LOL!

Might be a bit too late and lower market for the tiles. I would think it could be influenced by the Arts and Crafts movement of about 10 years earlier. I think the style became copied with mass produced goods. Imagine a more simplified "cottagey" Victorian, the earlier Gothic would have gone.
http://uk.propertyfinder.com/2/pf/da/tiscali/guides/chooseAndBuy/artsAndCrafts.do;jsessionid=6ABC20DD7EA40E15A77CDF54060B204D
http://www.achome.co.uk/interiors/interiors.htm

To be accurate I would say also don't go towards either Art Nouveau (which had only just started) or anything of Charles Rennie Mackintosh. What was fashionable in Upper Class London took years to reach the provinces and the less well off.

Just don't go buying the original wallpaper :rotfl:
http://www.sandersonfabrics.co.uk/acatalog/Morris_Hand_Printed_Wallpapers.html
:eek: Not very MSE at £674.56 plus VAT per roll