THIS building was intended for erection on a leasehold estate at a little distance out of London. It would have been of rather plainer character, but the view (page 192) shows the design first made. The frontage, or width of ground for each house, was
Ground-floor plan.
60 feet, the depth 150 feet. The character of the building was of the domestic style of the reign of Henry VII., and the accommodation it afforded is given in the several plans. The ground plan shows two large rooms D and E, the drawing and dining rooms, which can easily be opened into each other by sliding back the inner doors into the partition; C is the library, with a book-room leading out of it. B is the staircase, of a size rather larger than that generally allowed in London houses. Very often, sufficient attention is not paid to this highly important part of our dwellings by builders, nor full space allowed for it. A
One-pair plan.
good staircase should have, at every six or seven steps, a landing of at least 2 feet 6 inches in depth. Where winding stairs are used they should have a good sweep; the tread, in the centre, should be 1 foot in width, the riser never more than 6 inches in height—less even would be better. It is also of considerable importance in a staircase that the height of the steps in the various flights should be the same. Some of the most costly and important of the builders’ houses in London, erected on highly rented land, have the staircases so confined that these, an architect’s well-known rules, are wholly put aside. Staircases with risers of 6 inches in height from the ground to the one-pair floor, increased to near 7 inches to the two-pair, the latter flight containing probably 30 steps in a straight line without a landing, render a house almost uninhabitable.
Attic plan.