PLANNING OF LONDON HOUSES 



309 



Is placed. The difficulty attending 

 on the ornamenting of a row of 

 houses with architectural features is 

 illustrated here by the fact that one 

 of the pilasters, which belongs in 

 common to two houses, has been 

 painted of two colours, which meet 

 in a vertical line down the whole 

 length of the pilaster an effect cer- 

 tainly not contemplated by the archi- 

 tect. All these London houses have 

 their kitchens in the basement, which 

 is lighted from a sunk area between 

 the house and the pavement. The 

 plan generally adopted consisted of 

 two rooms on each floor, one lighted 

 from the front, the other from the 

 back. Alongside the front room on 

 the ground floor was the entrance 

 passage, and next to the back room 

 was the staircase, with its gangway 

 of communication from flight to flight 

 (Fig. 223). On the first floor the 

 drawing-room occupied the whole of 

 the front, behind it was a bedroom ; 

 the other floors repeated the arrange- 

 ment. Sometimes the drawing-room 

 included the space elsewhere devoted 



to the bedroom, thus making a large L-shaped room. This 

 plan was used for houses of fair size and also for artisans' 

 dwellings ; it is still the staple plan for houses in the long 

 streets which make up the modern extension of growing towns, 

 with the important exception that the kitchen and scullery are 

 not in a basement, but on the ground floor, occupying the back 

 room and the annexe. Of the London examples here illustrated 

 this arrangement applies only to the houses in Finsbury Square ; 

 the others are double-fronted. It is said to have been brought 

 from Holland with William III., and this at least is tolerably 

 certain, that no plan of this type is to be found in any collection 

 of English drawings before this period, although there are plenty 

 of plans with underground kitchens and offices. Thorpe has 



FlG. 223. Plan of a London 

 House. 



