The Great Fire of London swept through the city in September 1666, destroying more than 13,000 houses, together with churches, warehouses and public buildings. This disaster exposed the dangers of the traditional medieval city. Streets were narrow, houses were crowded together and timber was used extensively in their construction.
Many buildings also had projecting upper storeys, known as jetties, which stretched out over the street. In some places, houses on opposite sides came alarmingly close to meeting in the middle, making it all too easy for fire to leap from one building to the next.
The rebuilding of London gave Charles II and Parliament the chance to create a safer and more orderly city. The Rebuilding of the City of London Act of 1667 required new houses to be built principally of brick or stone. Timber-framed façades and projecting upper storeys were prohibited.
These regulations did not immediately create the Georgian London we recognise today. They did, however, establish an important principle: what an owner did with a private building could be controlled when public safety was at stake.
Further legislation followed as London spread beyond the historic City into Westminster and the rapidly developing estates of today’s West End.
The Building Act of 1774
The most influential measure was the Building Act of 1774, formally known as the Fires Prevention (Metropolis) Act.
The Act applied across London, Westminster and much of the surrounding areas. It brought together earlier legislation and introduced consistent rules governing the construction of walls, roofs, chimneys, hearths, foundations and party walls.
Buildings were divided into seven classes, or “rates”, with the first four applying principally to houses. Surveyors were appointed to inspect new buildings and ensure that builders had followed the rules.
Combustible materials on façades were tightly restricted. Timber ornament was largely prohibited, apart from limited features such as doorcases and shopfronts. Wooden window frames had to be set back within recessed openings rather than placed flush with the face of the wall.
This was a practical fire-prevention measure, but it also helped to create one of the defining features of Georgian London: the sash window set neatly behind a narrow brick reveal.
When “third-rate” was not an insult
Descriptions such as “first-rate”, “second-rate” and “third-rate” sound rather judgemental today. In the eighteenth century, however, they were not expressions of approval or disapproval. They were formal classifications based broadly upon a house’s size and value.
A handsome Georgian house could therefore be officially “third-rate” without anyone suggesting that its architecture was second-rate.
First-rate houses
First-rate houses had a ground plan of more than 900 square feet and were valued at over £850. These were the largest metropolitan houses and were generally intended for aristocratic or exceptionally wealthy occupants.
Second-rate houses
Second-rate houses measured between 500 and 900 square feet and were valued at between £300 and £850. They were substantial homes, often occupied by prosperous merchants and professionals.
Third-rate houses
Third-rate houses measured between 350 and 500 square feet and were valued at between £150 and £300. This became one of the most common forms of speculative middle-class housing in Georgian London.
Fourth-rate houses
Fourth-rate houses measured less than 350 square feet and were valued at under £150. These smaller properties were often found in secondary streets and occupied by artisans, tradespeople and households of more modest means.
The rise of the London terrace
The rating system was particularly well suited to speculative development.
As London expanded, major landowners laid out new streets and squares and granted building leases to developers and master builders. Houses could then be erected in groups using similar plans, dimensions and construction methods.
The 1774 Act did not insist upon a single architectural style, nor did it require every house in a terrace to be identical. Even so, its restrictions encouraged a strong degree of visual consistency.
Brick façades, recessed sash windows, continuous parapets, substantial party walls and limited external ornament became characteristic features of London’s domestic architecture.
The third-rate house proved especially successful. It offered enough space for a respectable middle-class household while remaining relatively economical to construct. Repeated along a street or arranged around a square, houses of this type helped to create the architectural rhythm now so strongly associated with Georgian London.
Regulation or monotony?
The qualities admired today were not universally appreciated at the time. Some nineteenth-century observers found London’s seemingly endless brick terraces repetitive, gloomy and even oppressive.
Benjamin Disraeli complained of the capital’s “flat, dull, spiritless streets”, comparing their houses to “a large family of plain children”.
Legislation was only part of the explanation, however. Repeated plans were cheaper and quicker to build. Estate landowners valued the orderly appearance of uniform streets and squares, while pattern books allowed familiar architectural details to be reproduced across large developments.
London’s terraces were therefore the result of several forces working together: fire regulations, commercial practicality, estate management and architectural fashion.
A lasting legacy
The Georgian brick terrace, with its recessed sash windows, substantial party walls, regular proportions and restrained ornament, was not simply the product of architectural taste. It was also shaped by legislation, economics and the practical demands of building a rapidly expanding city.
Fire first transformed London through destruction. The regulations introduced in its aftermath then helped to create one of the city’s most recognisable and enduring architectural forms.
The result was an architecture born partly from beauty, partly from business – and partly from a very reasonable desire not to set the neighbours’ house on fire.