The Victorian Era

Victorian Architecture and Interior Design

Complete guide · Architecture & Design · The Victorian Era, 1837–1901

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Victorian architecture was the most varied and the most prolific of any period in British history. Between 1837 and 1901 the United Kingdom, the British Empire, and the wider world saw the construction of the great Gothic Revival churches and public buildings of the early period, the elaborate Italianate villas and Ruskinian Gothic country houses of mid-century, and the red-brick Queen Anne terraces and steel-framed office blocks of the late period. The Victorian interior kept pace: it moved from the dark, heavy, cluttered rooms of the early years, through the lighter and more comfortable rooms of mid-century, to the simpler and more aesthetic rooms of the 1880s and 1890s. This page is the entry point to a broader examination of the subject, sketching the principal styles, the principal architects, the principal materials, and the principal debates of the period.

The Styles

Victorian architecture is usually described in terms of a sequence of distinct styles, each with its own characteristics, its own practitioners, and its own patrons. The Gothic Revival, the most influential of the styles, was based on the medieval Gothic of the twelfth to fifteenth centuries, and it was promoted by A. W. N. Pugin, George Gilbert Scott, William Butterfield, and G. E. Street. The Italianate, an interpretation of the Italian Renaissance villa, was popular for country houses and suburban villas, and its leading practitioners included Charles Barry, William Burn, and Anthony Salvin. The Scottish Baronial, an interpretation of the Scottish tower house, was championed by William Burn, David Bryce, and Edward Blore. The Queen Anne, a free interpretation of late seventeenth-century English architecture, was the dominant suburban style of the 1880s and 1890s, and its chief exponents were Richard Norman Shaw, Ernest George, and Philip Webb. The history of these styles is examined in Victorian Architectural Styles.

The Victorian era also saw the appearance of entirely new building types made possible by new construction techniques. The great railway terminus, with its iron-and-glass train shed, was a new building type: King’s Cross (1852), St Pancras (1868), Paddington (1854), and Victoria (1860) are the most famous. The iron-framed warehouse, the iron-framed factory, the covered market, and the great iron-and-glass exhibition hall — most famously the Crystal Palace of 1851 — were likewise new building types. The history of these buildings is examined in Famous Victorian Buildings and Landmarks.

The Materials

The materials of Victorian architecture were many and varied, and the period is notable for the new prominence of iron, glass, and concrete alongside the traditional brick, stone, timber, and slate. Brick was the standard walling material of the period, used in a remarkable range of colours, textures, and bonds: red brick, yellow London stock, blue Staffordshire, polished and glazed, moulded and ornamental, in English bond, Flemish bond, and the polychrome striped work of the High Victorian Gothic. Stone — limestone, sandstone, granite, slate, marble — was used for ashlar, for dressings, for carvings, and for the columns and pilasters of the public buildings.

The new materials of the period were of decisive importance. Cast iron, wrought iron, and, from the 1870s, mild steel made possible the great train sheds, the great exhibition halls, and the great bridges. Plate glass, produced by the new rolling process, made possible the great glazed shopfronts of Regent Street and Oxford Street. Portland cement, manufactured industrially from the 1840s, made possible the great concrete substructures, the new Coignet’s béton, and the mass concrete of the later piers. Terracotta and faience, both used freely for decorative bands, capitals, and friezes, gave the buildings of the 1860s and 1870s their characteristic polychrome enrichment.

The Architects

The Victorian era produced a generation of brilliant architects. The most important included Charles Barry, the architect of the Houses of Parliament, the Reform Club, the Travellers Club, and the Trafalgar Square improvements; A. W. N. Pugin, the architect of the interior of the Houses of Parliament and of the clock tower, the great theorist of the Gothic Revival; George Gilbert Scott, the architect of the Albert Memorial, the Midland Grand Hotel at St Pancras, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, and some 800 churches; William Butterfield, the architect of All Saints Margaret Street, Keble College Oxford, and Rugby School Chapel; G. E. Street, the architect of the Royal Courts of Justice and Christ Church Cathedral Dublin; William Burges, the architect of Cardiff Castle, Cork Cathedral, and the Tower House; Joseph Paxton, the architect of the Crystal Palace; Owen Jones, the designer of the interior of the Crystal Palace; and Isambard Kingdom Brunel, the engineer of the Great Western Railway, the Clifton Suspension Bridge, the Royal Albert Bridge, and the SS Great Britain. The work of these architects is examined in Victorian Architectural Styles and in Famous Victorian Buildings and Landmarks.

The Interiors

The Victorian interior was as varied as the Victorian exterior, and it was shaped by the same forces. The interior of the early period was generally dark, heavy, and cluttered, with a great deal of ornament, pattern, fabric, dark wood, and bric-à-brac, set in deep, saturated colours: crimson, claret, bottle green, and Prussian blue against gilt and gesso. The interior of mid-century became lighter, airier, and more comfortable, with more space, more light, and a greater attention to convenience, comfort, and the display of the family at leisure.

The interior of the late period became simpler, more practical, and more aesthetic, shaped by the Aesthetic Movement, the Arts and Crafts Movement, the influence of Japanese design, and the early stirrings of Art Nouveau. Wallpapers lightened, wall colours softened, surfaces simplified, and the heavy, knobbly furniture of mid-century gave way to the lighter, more honest, more eucalyptine work of the Morris circle and to the pale, sun-flowered rooms of the Aesthetic interior. The history of the interior is examined in Victorian Interior Design.

The Furniture and Decorative Arts

The furniture of the period was the subject of a major industry, and the cabinet-makers of London, the Midlands, and the North supplied the new middle-class home in unprecedented quantities. The furniture of the early period was generally heavy, dark, and elaborately carved, in mahogany, rosewood, walnut, or oak, decorated with carving, inlay, marquetry, veneer, and gilding, and upholstered in horsehair, wool, silk, velvet, or damask. The furniture of mid-century became more comfortable and more varied, with the introduction of the coil-sprung seat, the deep-buttoned upholstery, and the greater range of fabrics. The furniture of the late period became simpler and more aesthetic, with the new influence of the Morris circle, of Liberty, and of the Arts and Crafts Exhibition Society. The history of the furniture is examined in Victorian Furniture and Decorative Arts.

The decorative arts of the period were equally diverse: pottery and porcelain from Staffordshire, from Worcester, from the Doulton factory, and from a hundred smaller makers; stained glass by Clayton and Bell, by Hardman, and by Morris, Marshall, Faulkner & Co.; silver and gold plate from the great City firms; textiles from the mills of Lancashire and the looms of Spitalfields; and carpets from the new Wilton and Axminster factories. The decorative arts are examined further in Victorian Furniture and Decorative Arts and in How did the Arts and Crafts movement begin?.

The Legacy

The legacy of the period is substantial. The Victorian terrace, the Victorian semi-detached villa, the Victorian detached house, the Victorian country house, the Victorian church, the Victorian school, the Victorian town hall, the Victorian museum, the Victorian gallery, the Victorian hospital, the Victorian workhouse, the Victorian station, the Victorian terminus, the Victorian hotel, the Victorian bank, the Victorian club, the Victorian theatre, the Victorian music hall, the Victorian pub, the Victorian post office, the Victorian market, the Victorian baths, the Victorian cemetery — all of these are building types of the period, and they still make up the bulk of the urban fabric of the United Kingdom. The buildings of the period are examined in Famous Victorian Buildings and Landmarks, and the broader context of the era is set out in The Victorian Era: A Complete Historical Overview.