South Kensington Living
Queen Anne Style
Queen Anne Style or Domestic Revival was a revolt against the classical design of London houses - or at least against the staid versions churned out by Victorian builders, who often produced their own designs for the terraces and squares they built. The facade of a 'classical' house was based on the principles of Palladio. It had stucco at least up to the first floor and involved columns, or at least the appearance of columns, supporting a cornice above the second floor - the typical Kensington house.
As a reaction against that (by then) tired formula, Queen Anne Style was intended to draw inspiration from English houses of the reign of Queen Anne, before Classicism dominated house design. The leading exponents of the new style were Richard Norman Shaw (1831 - 1912) and William Eden Nesfield (1835 - 1888). It was a combination of the sensible plain brick houses of the time of William and Mary and Queen Anne and traditional Dutch houses, with their dramatically shaped gables.
These houses are nearly always brick - usually red brick. In place of classical Greek details, on the facade and round doors and windows, there are details derived from English and Flemish houses of the 17th and 18th centuries. Early versions went even further. In place of the identical or 'mirror' houses of the conventional Classical terrace, they copied the effect you can see when you travel along an Amsterdam canal, of tall narrow houses built in terraces but each quite individual and different from its neighbours in size and appearance. So Queen Anne blocks sometimes have carefully contrived irregularities in the elevations and design. Internally, the rooms were designed more freely to suit the space, or the intended use of the house.
The most obvious feature of Queen Anne houses are gables. These had been a feature of London houses before the Great Fire in 1666 and had continued to be a feature of Dutch houses (hence 'Dutch gables'). Gables began to dominate the facades of the new houses. They are often elaborately shaped. Many include an echo of the Classical style by being crowned with a small open-headed pediment. A picturesque effect was also obtained by including bay and oriel windows, huge chimney stacks, and elaborate decorative or floral effects moulded or cut into the bricks.
One impetus behind the new building style was that it was cheaper. Bricks were cheap. Using red cut bricks was the cheapest way to form a window head. A particular feature of Queen Anne houses is often the perfectly shaped bricks standing on end to form the head of the windows. Since gables were essentially free-standing features above the roof, they were also comparatively cheap to build.
