On the availability of certain rooms

The scattergrams on figures 2 and 2.1 show the correlation t>etween the number of main living rooms — reception rooms, service rooms and bedrooms — and the number of interior spaces. The three variables correlate well (R- sq.= 0.57, 0.657, 0.752, respectively, p.= 0.0001) with bedrooms presenting the best correlation. However, sorting out size groups according to the number of bedrooms implies a problem similar to that of the total number of cells since they range quite strongly in number across the sample and defining the intervals for breaking up each size band had to involve a little guesswork. It seemed thus safer to check on all three variables for a preliminary investigation on size.

The sample was then divided into size categories, according to the number of main function rooms. Table 2.1 shows the availability of reception- and service-related rooms as well as bedrooms in the plans and the number of cases that conform to those parameters. Table 2.2 relates each category to the number of interior cells, the number of storeys and the situation of the building and its plot. The three sets of figures show that larger houses have nearly forty interior spaces distributed into three floors and are mainly

detached. Medium-sized houses, also mainly detached, have a mean number of interior spaces around twenty-three and a little over 2.3 floors; and small ones, mainly terraced and semi-detached, have a little over fourteen interior spaces, on average, and two storeys.

As it was observed that the proportion of transition spaces appear to vary greatly according to the type of ground occupation, size groups were examined for detached, semi-detached and terraced buildings (table 2.3). The function to transition spaces ratio ranges from around 1.4 to 1.7 for detached houses and from approximately 1.3 to 1.6 for semi-detached ones as well as for

middling and small terraced houses. Large terraced houses, however, present a ratio of approximately 1. Average figures for each building/plot group do not translate this huge disparity. This seems to place large terraced houses as sui generis cases in the sample which must, therefore, be handled with care.

The figures displayed on table 2.3 corroborate the general assumption that detached houses tend to belong in the wealthier lane of the social road, semi­ detached in the middle and terraced ones in the humbler side, as far as mean number of spaces go and judging from the number of cases in each variables. Detached houses show fewer small complexes than semi-detached or terraced ones, regardless of the variable examined whereas semi-detached and,

specially terraced houses show a larger number of small cases for the three variables.

Large detached houses tend to have around eighteen rooms, semi-detached ones approximately seventeen and terraced ones a little over twenty-one rooms. Middling detached houses have twelve rooms, on average, semi­ detached ones around eleven and terraced houses nine or ten. Small detached buildings have around eight rooms and semi-detached as well as terraced ones something between six and seven function cells.

Stefan Muthesius®’ classifies the potential inhabitants of his terraced houses in eight groups according to the number of rooms. (1) At the top of the rank, ... knights, peers, judges, merchants, or simply ‘gentlemen’... with high incomes, who actually lived in country houses, held town houses inhabited by servants for most of the year, with about twenty rooms plus smaller rooms for the

servants. These numbers, according to the author are also the equivalent of a medium-sized country house. (2) Next, came the rich ... lawyers, merchants, upper civil servants ... in fifteen-roomed dwellings in large terraces. (3) In a third group, ... the ‘professional man': lawyers, the successful doctor, the top range of clerks... in ten-roomed houses and poor accommodation for the average three female servants. (4) One or two servants, possibly

accommodated ... in extremely makeshift... conditions would share a house with seven or eight rooms with the ... lower-paid professionals, like the higher clerks... (5) Between these and the lower ranks, shopkeepers and lower clerks, with perhaps a young female servant, inhabited six or seven rooms. (6) At the bottom of the lower middle-class, with no servants and ... no firm

dividing line ... between this and the better-paid working-class, came the occupants of five- or six-roomed houses. (7) Below this group, occupying

Muthesius, S. The English Terraced House . Yale University - New Haven and London, 1982, pp.44-45.

three- to four-roomed houses,... the great mass of the semi-skilled, ... miners and textile workers . (8) At the very bottom and often housed in two rooms only, come the dwellings o f ... unskilled labourers.

The mean number of just over twenty-one function spaces found in large town houses and that of around eighteen in large detached houses match roughly the number of twenty rooms identified by Muthesius for large terraced houses as well as for medium-sized country houses. As for medium-sized houses in this sample, the average of around nine or ten function rooms in terraced dwellings, eleven in semi-detached, and twelve in detached ones fall

somewhere in between the second and the third group in Muthesius’s account, whereas in the bottom band, an average six to seven function rooms in small terraced and semi-detached houses and of around eight in detached dwellings correlate roughly with what was found for the lower segments of the middle- class and the upper strata of the working class in the above cited work.

Muthesius also states th a t... mansions with more than twenty rooms, ... piled up in five or even six storeys on top of a basement, only appear in the 1650s and 60s in London, ...® and that the ... vast majority of terraced houses range from a maximum of twelve rooms down to four or five rooms not counting the smaller service rooms from the scullery downwards. Indeed, of the one hundred and forty-seven terraced houses in the sample, only fourteen have over twenty function cells (ranging from twenty-one to thirty-one rooms).

These buildings have from four to six floors (5, on average) and the oldest plan was published in 1894. On the other hand, one hundred and twenty-two cases, nearly 83% of all terraced houses in the sample, have between four and twelve function cells, corroborating that author’s reference of such houses being the vasf majority, although he does not count smaller rooms — scullery downwards — which are being considered in this study.

Helen Long® ranges her middle-class Edwardian houses in five groups according to the number of reception rooms and the number of bedrooms. At the top of the scale are the homes for the upper middle-class with four

reception rooms and seven bedrooms plus a nursery besides other amenities, not particularly relevant for this investigation. The second band comprises

“^Muthesius,s. op.cit., p.81 Long, op.cit., p. 31.

houses with three or four reception rooms and about five bedrooms. In the middle rank, houses for the middle middle class, with two reception rooms, perhaps a large living-kitchen too, and four bedrooms. The bottom two groups, designed for the lower middle classes, comprise houses with two reception rooms and three or two bedrooms.

Strong similarities between the breaking up of this sample according to the number of reception cells and bedrooms and Long’s references can be found, particularly at the top and medium bands. In the lower rank, however. Long considers that two rooms could be used for reception purposes even in low middle class houses. For Stefan Muthesius^ too, a minimum o f ... two

reception rooms, one front, one back ... could be found in five- to six-roomed houses without a basement, the type of building which, according to him, links lower middle-class and higher working-class dwellings.

In the present data a few houses with no space entirely exempt from some sort of service related activity were identified. As no such case is explicitly

mentioned by the cited authors, it is believed that they are, in fact, arraying the back living room which in most cases amalgamated eating, cooking and general daily activities as a reception space. This seems to be reinforced by Muthesius’s statement th a t... the back room was for ordinary living and the front room for ‘best’ ® and that the proportion of reception rooms to the rest in later nineteenth century dwellings was ... one in two, or one in three in larger houses, and one to one is smaller houses ®. The only ratio that comes anywhere near these figures in the sample is that between the number of bedrooms and the number of reception plus service rooms (1.24) in houses with three bedrooms or less. This suggests that, at least as concerns small dwellings, what the author terms as the rest comprise mainly bedrooms whereas living plus cooking spaces falls into the reception category, thus widening the scope of two-reception roomed dwellings. On the other hand the existence of two reception rooms (in the sense that these functions are

understood in this study) seems to have been common among even quite small houses, as shall be discussed shortly.

Muthesius S, op.cit.p.48. Idem, Ibidem.

The number of reception rooms was also used by Hermann Muthesius®^ for sorting social groups apart. Although stating that the main difference between larger and smaller country houses is availability of space rather than number of reception rooms, he considers that houses with four reception cells and

spacious staff quarters bridge the borders between the two.

Twenty-nine houses with four reception rooms were found in the sample (table 2.1). These have from twenty to seventy-five spaces (45.6 mean number) and two to six storeys (3.5 mean). Such figures constitutes a strong leap up the size scale when compared to the average of around forty spaces and three floors of the top bracket previously identified, suggesting four-reception houses to be quite exceptional even for a sample tipped towards the top end of the size scale. This is, incidentally, emphasised by the referred author who admits that houses ... with only three [reception] rooms In addition to the hall are much more common ®. He also considers two reception rooms plus a hall to be ... the maximum reduction In reception rooms conceivable for a house of any sort of comfort,... and warns that such ... house has few possibilities outside the lower middle-classes, unless the Individual dimensions of the rooms are so large that It almost becomes a large country house.

This does not come as a surprise when one considers that Hermann

Muthesius, writing in 1905, would almost certainly share the disregard for all things ordinary among earlier authors who isurveyed their object nearly always and only from a larger-than-life vintage point. It is quite remarkable how each paragraph of his study, although entitled The English House, grows more and more economical as the author climbs down the size rank. When one, at last, expects to learn something about the vast majority of 'English houses’ in the item on the small suburban house, there comes the (death) sentences: The programme of the workman’s residence Is too primitive and Is dictated by external circumstances to too great an extent for there to be any possibility of Its providing a fruitful stimulus ... We shall therefore refrain from discussing the workman’s house ^

Jill Franklin acknowledges nine as the largest number of reception rooms ever "^Muthesius, H.Op.cit., pp. 129/130.

Idem, Ibidem. Idem, p.148.

provided in a country house but states th a t... seven or eight was more usual even for the most opulent h o u s e s The largest number of reception rooms found in the sample was seven, in a house with ninety-four spaces and four storeys. In another, with over a hundred spaces, the largest in the sample, there were six reception rooms. Two others had five reception rooms and forty-six and forty-nine spaces, respectively. Therefore a total of thirty-three cases only (6.6% of the entire sample) had four or more reception rooms as opposed to a hundred and thirty-three (26.6%) with three or more. Because this number represents a reasonably significant slice of the sample and because this study intends to abide on the ordinary rather than on the

exceptional side of things, a minimum number of three reception rooms was considered fit to settle the limits for the upper rank of the size ladder at this stage of the study.

Despite minor discrepancies, the parallells between the sample and the above references, have contributed a first support on the representability of the data, thus encouraging further scrutiny along the line of the availability of certain function ceils for sorting potential social groups of occupants apart. A few contrasting nuances which resulted from the successive breaking of the sample according to those cells deserves, however, some examination.

The middle bracket in the reception group embodies a much larger number of cases than those in either the service or the bedrooms clusters, mainly at the expense of the small house group which becomes more reduced whether the sample is viewed as a whole (table 2.2) or according to the building-plot relationship (table 2.3). Therefore, the breaking of the sample into size categories according to the availability of reception rooms broadens the scope of middle-sized houses and reduces that of smaller ones. Besides, the very reduced proportion of detached plans among small houses in the reception cluster suggest that their status margins are being narrowed when this variable is defining size groups whereas that of medium-sized houses — with

comparatively larger number of terraced houses — has expanded downwards.

So, more than the availability of a second reception room, the existence of an extra service room and of over three bedrooms in a house seems to have been

^°° Franklin. Jill. The Gentleman’s Country House and Its Plan. 1835-1914. Routledge & Kegan Paul, London, 1981.

a privilege of fewer people. This also corroborates some of the references examined above which place two-reception houses in the lower middle class category. Regardless of whether those authors were mixing up cooking with receiving or not, it seems quite clear now that the mark of two reception rooms offers a somewhat flimsy boundary to sort size limits and, of course, social groups apart. These issues were expected to become clarified by being examined in a diachronic perspective.

2.3. Of size and tim e

The importance of World War I as a factor of alteration in British homes is generally referred to and changes in their interior layout attributed to the shortage of servants after the w a r^ Therefore, 1914 was the date chosen for splitting the sample into two period clusters so that change in time could be investigated. Size categories according to the three variables referred above, were reworked for the period 1843-1913 and for the period 1914-1930.

2.3.1. The ‘war e ffe ct’

By contrasting the results previously arrived at in a diachronic viewpoint (ta b le 2.4) considerable alterations were exposed. On the whole, before the war the border lines that set each size category apart seems better outlined and there is less variation among the averages of each category defined by the three variables. Larger houses have an average of approximately forty-one interior spaces and over three storeys; medium-sized ones have an average of

around twenty-four spaces and 2.6 storeys; small houses have an average of a little over thirteen spaces and two storeys. The proportion of function to transition rooms is 1.4, on average for all clusters, although multiple bedrooms tend to go with more transition spaces.

Yet some variance again occurs in the middle and bottom categories. Taking the reception variable as reference, it can be seen that two-service-roomed houses are more numerous and have slightly lower average spaces whereas fewer houses have four or five bedrooms and larger average number of spaces. This leads to the conclusion that contrarily to what the sample, seen

See Jackson, Alan. Semi-detached London: Suburban Development, Life and Transport, 1900-39. George Allen & Unwin Ltd., London, 1973.

as a synchronic whole, had indicated, before the war an extra reception room and, specially, the existence of a fourth bedrooms meant more of a privilege than that of a second service room which was found in over 82.4% (192 cases ) of prewar houses, against 78.1% (182 plans) with an extra reception and only 73.4% (171 plans) with more than three bedrooms.

After 1914 small plans expand slightly in size, contract in height and grow dramatically in number of cases for all variable ensembles, and large plans shrink consistently in size, height and specially in number of cases as compared to their counterparts published before 1914 There occurs a general reduction in the proportion of transition spaces.

The discrepancies among different variables are also stressed. The figures in the upper and specially the middle size category across the three variable groupings are now a lot less homogeneous than those of the prewar size bands. In the upper lot, three-or-more reception houses are more numerous (40 cases) and have fewer spaces (av.33.2) than three-or-more-service-

roomed houses (31 cases, 35.9 av. spaces) and, specially, than those with over six bedrooms (27 cases, 37.8 av. spaces). In the medium-sized bracket

another feature is revealed. In both the service and the bedroom groups the averages as regards spaces and storeys constitute no radical change from the picture outlined before the w a r . On the other hand in the reception cluster the average number of cells falls greatly (19.8 against 24.8 before 1914) and the number of cases 129) increases in relation to the bedroom (78) and, specially to the service group (56). The great contrast therefore seems to evolve around the number of service rooms. Whereas 63.3% of wartime and post-war

houses (169 plans) have two or more reception rooms a mere 32.6% (87 cases) have an extra service room after 1914. Next in line, featuring as rare commodities, follows a fourth bedrooms which is present in just 39.3% or 105 cases.

There are thus reasons to suppose that if before the war an extra reception room conveyed more status than an extra service room, the reverse occurred after 1914. However, when the total number of spaces was correlated with the three variables for the period 1843-1913 and 1914-1930, (figure 2.1 b/c), the

both time periods. This led to a series of examinations. First, the sample was broken down into five clusters of equivalent number of cases, (fig .2.2). Only