CLASSIC INNOVATIONS AND GOTHIC REVIVAL 311 



At the beginning of the nineteenth century a much plainer 

 and duller type of house was in vogue than had been the case at 

 the beginning of the eighteenth. The trend of design had been 

 always in this direction, always towards a more severe treat- 

 ment. This severity was endurable in large buildings where 

 variety could be obtained by a skilful grouping of the masses, 

 but in rows of small houses, or even in small detached houses, 

 it resulted in a baldness that can only rouse admiration when 

 other means of enjoyment are exhausted. Tennyson's " long 

 unlovely " street consisted of buildings thus plainly treated. 

 Another cause of this lack of interest was the erection of 

 houses by speculative builders and owners. Such houses had 

 of necessity to be cheap, and where cheapness is the first con- 

 sideration the amenities of design are generally the last. 

 Design indeed had lost itself; the traditions which had been 

 its guides were worn out ; in looking for help it appealed for 

 a time to Greece, and with its assistance planted a copy of 

 the Temple of Erectheus in St Pancras and of the Choragic 

 Monument of Lysicrates in Regent Street. Upon many a 

 country garden it bestowed a Grecian temple, set amid winding 

 shrubberies, towards which some heroine of Jane Austen would 

 steal to indulge her love-sick fancies. 



Such pagan architecture eventually roused protests in this 

 Christian country, and Pugin initiated the Gothic revival. 

 But the consideration of this development is beyond our present 

 scope, and it is only mentioned in order to show how completely 

 design had lost its way. Its last effort in the old paths was to 

 cover in part the plain front of a small house with a verandah 

 enclosed by trellis-work, in which originality is still to be found. 

 There is a good example in Finsbury Circus (Fig. 225), which 

 was built about 1814. Others may be found in Kennington 

 Park Road (Figs. 226, 227), somewhat more elaborate in treat- 

 ment. Kennington Park was at that time a common, and was 

 the place where malefactors from this part of Surrey expiated 

 their crimes on the gallows. The progress of civilisation has 

 not only reduced the number of crimes for which the penalty 

 was paid on Kennington Common, but has withdrawn the last 

 scene from public gaze. Doubtless, however, balconies such as 

 these were often crowded by persons eager to watch the irre- 

 vocable punishment of offences now adequately purged by a few 

 months' imprisonment. 



