Specifically Victorian influences (continued):

Shaw and Nesfield are the giants who followed and who launched the Revival. Motifs from their work were taken up by lesser men and so, up and down the country, one sees the ingredients of Shaw's Wealden style - tall brick chimneys and tile-hanging. These men rejected High Victorian robustness and coarseness in. favour of refinement, sensitivity, daintiness and subtly contrived picturesqueness. These became the qualities of Late Victorian domestic buildings.

4) Publications - such as the journal "The Builder" (founded 1842) and J. C. Loudon's widely influential "Encyclopaedia of Cottage, Farm and Villa Architecture and Furniture" (1833 and later editions). The former kept architects and speculative builders in touch with current trends; the latter, through its hundreds of illustrations and numerous plans, was a quarry for models and motifs based on a variety of styles. For the villa Loudon recommended what he called "the old English style", a vague term for Gothic or Tudor or Elizabethan. He recommended it for its picturesqueness and for the convenience of its "irregular" (i.e. asymmetric) plan. The "irregular" plan allowed all the principal rooms to "face the best views" and afforded space for the service rooms. He stressed the importance of having conspicuous chimneys. Above all he stressed that the house should be "united" with its grounds "in accordance with the principles of landscape gardening". The grounds should " imitate natural scenery" but unless this is done "in the spirit of art" it becomes "mere mimicry". He made it clear that the designs he illustrated were intended for "the middling classes of society".

continued . . .