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Inside Stories
Britain has a heritage of magnificent architecture. But what role did the buildings play in the everyday life of the community?
Castles
Life in a castle was tough. A central fire was usually all that provided heat and the lord and his family would get the best of what warmth there was, and would have the benefit of blankets, furs and feather mattresses. Small lamps helped to warm the other inhabitants.
Hygiene was minimal. Farm beasts would often roam freely, creating a pungent mix of unwashed humans and animals. Lords or ladies would bath in a wooden tub, with privacy provided by a tent. For others, privacy in castles was generally fairly rare.
The Middle Ages castle day would start with the rising sun and the trumpeting of guards. The many servants would be required to make sure the fire was lit, the halls cleaned and food ready for their master and mistress's breakfast.
Five of the best
- Dover Castle, 12th century
- Tower of London, 11th century
- Warwick Castle, 11th century
- Edinburgh Castle, Norman
- Caernarfon Castle, 1330
Parish churches
Quintessentially English, parish churches mostly evolved from chapels as they accumulated a wider range of liturgical services, including baptisms, burials and feast day celebrations.
The churches were extended and remodelled to accommodate these new functions. Chancels – divided from the nave by a decorated chancel arch – were enlarged to give the priest more space to operate.
The parish system was born out of the division of land using churches established by bishops and kings during the Anglo-Saxon age as a focus for different units. Early on, churches were timber built, but by the time of the Norman conquest stone construction was favoured.
Some 7,000 parish churches became central to their local communities by the start of the 12th century. They became the main local meeting place for everything from business dealings to family arrangements.
Local church and land authorities levied taxes and other duties on local residents to support the church and priest, and look after the poor and sick.
Five of the best
- Brixworth, Northamptonshire, 7th century
- St John's, Burford, Oxfordshire, 1100
- St James, Chipping Campden, Gloucestershire, 1500
- St Benet's, Cambridge, 11th century
- St Michael, Stanton Harcourt , Oxfordshire, 12th century
Stately homes
Life in and around a stately home was rigidly structured. Servants were kept out of view. They slept either in an attic or basement or separate buildings on the estate. Tunnels and secret passageways were often built to enable access for service without disturbing visitors. Key responsibilities would be assigned to the butler, housekeeper, cook, maids, footman, valet, gardener, groom, and perhaps, if there were children in the house, a nanny nurse or governess.
Five of the best
- Holkham Hall, Norfolk. Palladian mansion built between 1734 and 1762 by William Kent for Thomas Coke, First Earl of Leicester.
- Blenheim, Oxfordshire. Built for John Duke of Marlborough and his Duchess Sarah, by Sir John Vanbrugh between 1705 and 1722, on the orders of Queen Anne. The queen wanted to thank the duke for leading troops to victory against the French near the Danube and a small village called Blenheim.
- Castle Howard, North Yorkshire. Designed by John Vanbrugh in 1699 for the Howard family, who still live in it today.
- Leeds Castle, Kent. Built in the 12th century, it became known as Lady's Castle because its royal occupants included Edward I's wives Eleanor and Margaret; Edward III's wife, Philippa of Hainhault; Catherine de Valois, Henry V's wife; Catherine of Aragon, first wife of Henry VIII; and Elizabeth I, who was imprisoned there.
- Chatsworth, Derbyshire. Construction started in 1552 and the estate is now home to the Duke and Duchess of Devonshire.
Housing terraces
Life in a terraced house depended on who you were. If you were rich, it meant a capacious convenience, in or near the centres of cities or towns. For the poor, it meant more than likely being tightly-packed, squeezed side-by-side, back-to-back with all your neighbours.
Terraced housing evolved in Britain in the mid 18th century, with elegant Georgian townhouses for merchants and the aristocracy in, for example, Edinburgh, Bath and London's Regent's Park.
By early in the 19th century, speculative builders realised that this style of building could be adapted on a far smaller and more cramped scale for building rows of houses for workers crowding into the cities for jobs in the emerging industries.
These became overcrowded and unhealthy and dropped out of favour when council estates were born in 1919. But with the perceived failure of their replacements – tower blocks and large estates of flats – terraced housing is now firmly back in favour.
Five of the best
- Bedford Square, London, 1775
- The Circus, Bath, 1754. Designed by John Wood I
- Back-to-backs, Birmingham, 19th century
- 1-3 Willow Road, Hampstead, London. 1937. Designed by Erno Goldfinger, his own house in the terrace was the first Modern Movement house to be taken over by the National Trust.
- Gold Hill, Shaftesbury, Dorset. Built over centuries to become the archetypal English village scene.
Industrial spaces
Life in and around Britain's industrial spaces has varied hugely, depending on the prevailing economic conditions. In the 19th century, and for much of the 20th century, vast areas of every city were covered with smoke-belching factories, far more sinister looking than even English artist and poet William Blake could have imagined when he wrote of 'dark satanic mills' early in the 1900s.
The factory and mill villages became the new communities. Trail-blazing Derbyshire mill-owner Arkwright was ruthlessly efficient in providing living arrangements to ensure he harnessed his workers' last ounce of energy, to get his money's worth. On the other hand, Rowntree built a whole village to try to ensure better working and living conditions for his workers.
Glorious, public structures such as Manchester Town Hall and Ironbridge were other by-products of the wealth creation of industrialisation. And in what has become known as a post-industrial era, belching chimneys have been replaced by late 20th century aesthetic-conscious office buildings, such as the Lloyd's Building in London, designed as much to create the right style impression as to perform an efficient function.
Many former industrial buildings have now been put to far gentler uses. The Bankside Power Station, for example, was remodelled into art gallery Tate Modern by Swiss architects Jacques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron, in 2000.
Five of the best
- Arkwright Mill, Derbyshire, 1769
- Manchester Town Hall, 1887. Designed by Alfred Waterhouse
- New Earswick, Rowntree village, 1894, Yorkshire
- Ironbridge, Shropshire. Built between 1777 and 1779 by a team led by iron master Abraham Darby III and architect Thomas Pritchard
- Lloyd's Building, London. 1984
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