Number 57
The history of a house
Maxwell Hutchinson
To make the television series that accompanies this book, Maxwell Hutchinson and a team of experts stripped No. 57 Kingsdown Parade in Bristol back to its original form and restored it generation by generation to show how our ancestors would have lived.
Number 57: The history of a house explores the changes in fashion, developments in technology and social evolution that imposed themselves on the domestic scene – from the rather squalid lifestyle of the late 18th century to way we live today. The result is not only a history of the fabric and decoration of one building, but also a history of its inhabitants – what they expected from their living space and how that was adapted to meet their needs.
In this edited extract, Maxwell Hutchinson reveals how No. 57 was
chosen to be the 'star' of the series and the book ...
No. 57 at the time of its purchase for the television series
The Number 57 project is the story of a house in Kingsdown Parade, Bristol ... We had a hunch that it had more than a few stories to tell. We were rewarded with a rich and varied history that exceeded our expectations.
When the television series was first proposed to me – the study of a house over the last 200 years – I thought this was an architectural project and a history of interiors. I was soon to discover that everything I thought I knew about domestic architecture was inextricably linked to social history, because design is a response to our changing needs. This was to be an examination of a house as a manifestation of social change ...
Rich, nouveau riche and poor
As we were going to explore more than 200 years of daily change, there
was no point in choosing a grand home. The rich can solve problems immediately,
adopting new ideas, techniques and products as soon as they become available.
If they choose, they can replace everything in a house in one fell swoop.
However, the old money of the aristocracy and the upper classes tends to lead, not to profligacy, but to the gradual build-up of increasingly valuable artefacts from the past. Whenever I visit the homes of those whose wealth has been acquired over time, I am struck by the way in which successive generations have held on to the furniture, pictures, porcelain and silver that reinforce their sense of ancestral history – quite literally, they will not sell the family silver.
In contrast, the nouveau riche want to show off their wealth with enthusiastic extravagance, changing their homes at will as a means of displaying it.
A dwelling at the other end of the scale, lived in by the truly poor, would not suit our purposes either. People in such circumstances were involved in a desperate struggle for survival, where it was enough to have a roof over their heads - never mind such luxuries as fixtures and fittings and decoration.
A 'middling' home
As a result, it was decided that we should find what we called a 'middling'
home, an everyday house of what we now call the middle classes. It would
hold up a mirror to the day-to-day aspirations of ordinary people who
were living out their lives in history, through history, but who were
unlikely to make an individual impact on history.
So we were looking for a middling, unremarkable house, preferably with its rooms still laid out as they were originally. Where would we find such a house, and how old should it be? What should distinguish it from its next-door neighbours? ...
The Georgian kitchen
Georgian Bristol
We wanted a Georgian house because it is the longest-surviving house
type that we could reasonably expect most people to be familiar with.
They know it when they see it, and have been brought up to see the style
as the height of dignified English architecture.
We turned our eyes to Bath, but its Georgian terraces and grand sweeps are of a piece. They have been preserved from the day they were built. The story required somewhere that would be more idiosyncratic, which had witnessed repeated change. The road of fascination took us 27 miles further west to what had once been Britain's second city – Bristol.
The right note
To start in Georgian times was to start on exactly the right note.
We would provoke a mould-breaking response. No period has become more
crytallised in the lexicon of style than the desirable drawing rooms of
Jane Austen.
However, when I first take people round an ordinary Georgian dwelling, they are surprised by the economy of the rooms, the simplicity and dignity of the design and construction. Once we can establish an enquiring frame of mind about the expected layout of the houses we thought we knew so well, then we are also in the right frame of mind to think about the stinking tallow candles and the cesspit at the end of the garden.
Furthermore, the Georgian period saw a change in the fundamental forces underlying daily life. Sail and horse-power were about to be replaced by coal and steam. By the latter phase of the era, timber had been replaced by iron, horse-drawn wagons by steam engines, trading merchants by professional capitalists – those who did the work by those who invested and managed. Our house would reflect all this.
Greenfield site
It was then but a short step to deciding that the best possible Georgian
house would be one that had been built on a greenfield site. This would
reduce the influences of previous styles in the area ... In 1778, Bristol's
Kingsdown Parade was a row of new houses sitting incongruously in the
middle of a field overlooking the bustling mercantile city. It was a piece
of speculative building and typical of the period in that it was completely
atypical.
No. 57 Kingsdown Parade is part of a terrace. All the houses in it were built at the same time, but are not – unlike those in Bath or London's Bedford Square – all of the same design. As the terrace was built speculatively, the various property developers involved in the project were responsible for some, not all, of the houses. No. 57 was built as a pair with No. 59, though bearing a family resemblance to the houses on either side – giving a sense of order and dignity essential to the classically influenced Georgian mind.
The dining room in the late 18th century
House for sale
Most houses of this vintage have been meddled with over the centuries,
and would not have served our purposes. No. 57 was not listed until 1977,
so it is all the more remarkable that it still had all its principal attributes:
all the chimney breasts were there along with a wealth of original fireplaces,
cornices and mouldings. Even the handsome and very unusual staircase remained
untouched.
The house had been reroofed in 1973 but, thankfully, in its original M shape with a hidden valley gutter (though the clay tiles employed were, conspicuously, of the wrong type). The house was vacant, in quite good condition and for sale.
We had finally found our house, which was ready to be transported back in time. We had a series of empty rooms inviting us to respond to changes in furniture, lighting, heating and the whims of fashion.
Real people
But something was missing. It was in the very emptiness of the house
that the biggest advantage of a real house, rather than a television studio
set, became apparent. A real house would have been occupied by real people,
who would, quite literally, have worked out their lives in it.
I need to make a distinction between 'people' and 'real people'. Historians talk endlessly about how 'people' lived their lives – meaning, specifically, the general populace. In the case of No. 57, the 'real people' we would be talking about would be those who had actually lived in the house, those known by name, rank and occupation. Researchers can trace all, or nearly all, the families who have lived in the house, using parish records and other sources, while trade directories reveal how they earned their living.
Instead of presenting an overview of social history, we would have a unique and precise slice of history through the actual lives of real, everyday people. Our house and the people who lived in it would tell us one specific story against which the broader picture could be measured.
Maxwell Hutchinson is a practising architect and experienced broadcaster. From 1989 to 1991, he was the president of the Royal Institute of British Architects. During his tenure, he wrote The Prince of Wales: Right or wrong? as a reaction to Prince Charles' outspoken attack on contemporary architecture.
