C O N T E X T 1 7 2 : J U N E 2 0 2 2 23 REGULATIONS AND CODES on the window, based on correct mathematical proportions. Recessed door linings were divided to match the panels on the door itself, based on classical orders. These widely used design codes changed subtly with fashion, or depending on status. Design codes also applied to the interiors of houses. Stairs often had a newel or balusters, or both, sometimes in the shape of miniature classical columns. Staircase halls were often panelled, as were principal living rooms, whether dado height or full. Panelling, window linings, shutters, architraves, doors and skirtings and even fire surrounds could all be attributed to classical orders, shared widely in builders’ pattern books. Historic shopfronts used design codes based on the pared-down essentials of classical architecture. Today they are still used widely, set out in local authorities’ shopfront design guides, telling of pilasters, cornices and proportion. In towns where grandness and symmetry were needed, a terrace could be passed off as one large classical ‘palace-fronted’ house. Even in rural Lincolnshire, Bridge Street Terrace, Louth, is a palace-fronted house of 1825 concealing four terrace houses behind it. The first impression is of one large house, and only closer inspection reveals there are more doors than it should have for one house, and internally blanked-out central tripartite sash windows. There were solutions too where the polite met the vernacular, where design codes by the late 18th century were pared down to the bare minimum. Church Precincts, Westgate, Louth, is a good demonstration of a melding of styles. It has a reasonably well-proportioned, symmetrical elevation of three or five bays, with a plain but elegant door flanked by a pair of vertical sliding sash windows, but its gables are raised and tumbled. Even this seemingly odd pairing of two utterly distinct design codes of the pared-down, classically derived frontage, with the tried-and-tested vernacular detail, utterly practical in its origin and far from any classical derivations, somehow results in an unwritten design code which can now also be described as locally distinctive. Historic design codes continued to be used in all styles of architecture, albeit under new rules to suit each new architectural style, until somewhere in the mid-20th century, when design codes had been abandoned and failed to reach many of the national housebuilders. Given that many of us live in, work in or visit built historic environments, many of which at least in part have been influenced by 18th-century design codes, whether grand or simple, perhaps we can learn some lessons from historic codes. The harmonious proportions of a neat Georgian frontage, with windows of golden section, brick voussoir headers splayed elegantly above, and a good pattern-book doorcase, are pleasing to most with an eye for architecture. This is not to say that copycat architecture is necessary, resulting in what is sometimes mockingly termed ‘conservation officer’s Georgian’. There has to be a place for learning from historic codes when new design codes are formulated. Church Precincts, Louth: a classically derived frontage and vernacular detail of raised and tumbled gables (below) Bridge Street Terrace, Louth, 1825: four terrace houses presented as a palace Liz Mayle, a historic building consultant and former conservation officer based in Lincolnshire, is chair of the East Midlands branch of the IHBC.
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