Author Archives: Gail Eastwood

About Gail Eastwood

Gail Eastwood is the author of seven Regencies that were originally published by Signet/Penguin. After taking ten years off for family matters, she has wobbled between contemporary romantic suspense and more Regency stories, wondering what century she's really in and trying to work the rust off her writing skills. Her backlist is gradually coming out in ebook format, and some are now available in new print editions as well. She is working on the start of a Regency-set series and other new projects. Stay tuned!

Appreciation, or How Princess Charlotte Saved My Life

Updated on May 5, 2018 by Gail Eastwood

If this were Regency times, I wouldn’t be putting my thoughts into writing today. Given the medical misfortunes I’ve suffered recently, I would be dead. Sobering, right? Let me tell you, right now my appreciation for a certain Regency doctor and his contributions to modern medicine is boundless. I’ll get to the part where Princess Charlotte fits in shortly. Bear with me!

Diane’s March 5th post about the Brontes and the ways disease decimated their family was a vivid reminder of how far modern medicine has come in the understanding, prevention and treatment of diseases. I am thanking God and the stars right now for the similar advancement in medical tools and techniques, and understanding of the human body. In particular (and also most appropriately in this year of 2018), I am grateful for Dr. James Blundell, who was so horrified by the frequent deaths of women from bleeding after childbirth that he managed to re-open the medical world to studying the possibilities of blood transfusions.

To really understand what he accomplished we need to briefly look back further. You see, medical researchers in the mid-1600’s had tried to investigate and study the idea of transferring blood to help save lives. Unfortunately, most of their results had been pretty disastrous. This led authorities in France (the Chamber of Deputies), England (the Royal Society of London), and even the Pope (Papal Edict of 1678) to formally prohibit any further experimentation or study on the transfusion of blood.

Fast forward 150 years, and enter our hero, Dr Blundell. Born in 1790, he became a prominent London obstetrician, studying under Sir Astley Cooper, known for his achievements in vascular surgery, and also under his uncle, Dr. John Haighton, focusing on midwifery and physiology. He attended the University of Edinburgh, obtaining his medical degree in 1813. He returned to London to begin his medical practice and was recognized as a lecturer with his uncle on the topics of physiology (1816) and midwifery (1817) at the combined schools of St. Thomas’ and Guy’s Hospital in London.

Post-partum hemorrhage was a common cause of death for women after childbirth and the lack of remedy for it horrified the young obstetrician, sources say. I believe it is no coincidence that Dr Blundell was moved to break the 150-year-old taboo on studying blood transfusion after such a much-loved and very public figure as Princess Charlotte died from post-partum hemorrhaging in November of 1817 while her physicians stood by helplessly.

With his star on the rise, at the age of 27, Blundell had perhaps both more to lose and more potential for success than more established physicians of the period. All in the following year, he performed the first known successful blood transfusion, using a husband as donor for his wife, published an important paper titled “Experiments on the Transfusion of Blood by the Syringe” and was named a licentiate of the Royal College of Physicians.

Blundell modestly claimed he investigated the transfusion of blood “with a view of keeping this valuable option before the profession in the hope of adding something to the body of facts.” He performed 10 blood transfusions between 1825 and 1830, with a 50% success rate.

Throughout the Regency period and beyond, Dr Blundell continued to have a major impact on the field of medicine, and not just in the area of blood transfusions. Frustrated by the limited tools he had to work with, he devised new tools and methods, and his research also opened up new areas of study, particularly that of abdominal surgery. He became the sole lecturer on his topics at St. Thomas’ and Guy’s upon his uncle’s death in 1823. His lectures were collected and published in several versions during the 1830’s, culminating with “The Principles and Practices of Obstetricy as at Present Taught by Dr. James Blundell” (1834).

Two years later, however, the doctor had an “irreconcilable” dispute with the administration at Guy’s Hospital and retired from teaching at the age of 46. He did continue his private practice, and was made a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians in 1838.

The biography of Blundell by Stacy L. Adams at the Healio.com website has this to say about Blundell’s later life: “Often referred to as eccentric, in his later years Blundell had both interesting and unusual sleeping patterns. He rose midday and saw patients in his home in the afternoon hours. After dining he began a round of house calls as late as 8 p.m. or 9 p.m. He carried many books with him, which he read between calls by the interior light affixed to his carriage. Blundell retired in 1847 and moved to a large house in Piccadilly, London, where he lived in relative anonymity. He died on Jan. 15, 1878.”

Would Dr. James Blundell have been inspired and horrified enough to pursue his “forbidden” research in 1818 without the public tragedy of Princess Charlotte’s death? Who can say? I am eternally grateful that he did. When a “simple” surgical procedure I had at the beginning of March went horribly awry, I was able to have five blood transfusions over about as many days until my doctors were finally able to stop my internal bleeding. Without Blundell’s discoveries about many aspects of transfusion (which I’ve not gone into here), doctors who came after him would not have made the discoveries they did, including the typing of blood (c. 1900) or the importance of matching donor/patient blood types, or even the development of blood banks. Do you think Dr. Blundell could ever have imagined his work leading to anything like those?

I do want to give a shout out to all the people who donate blood to blood banks around the country. Are you a blood donor? What do you think about that? You never know when the life you save could be that of someone you know. Someone’s gift of blood saved me –along with all these other historical matters! If you are healthy and able to give blood, I hope each of you reading this post will consider donating the next time a blood drive happens in your area. Think of poor tragic Princess Charlotte and heroic Dr. James Blundell, forging ahead where no one dared to go for 150 years before him. Thank you!

Posted in History, Regency, Research | Tagged blood donors, Dr. James Blundell, Gail Eastwood, Medical History, Princess Charlotte, Regency Medicine | 9 Replies

Thoughts and Excuses

Updated on March 3, 2018 by Gail Eastwood

I was supposed to put up a new post today, March 2 (I’m the “First Fridays” Risky) but I just couldn’t get one written. I’m facing a medical procedure next week that has me a bit nervous, and I am scrambling to arrange my over-busy life so I can be laid-up for 6 days for the recovery time –which my doctor only mentioned to me on Wednesday! (I work in a one-person office for my day job….) Meanwhile, we haven’t been seeing many comments or indications that our faithful readers are still reading our posts, and we have been discussing making some changes –possibly doing more with our Facebook page and changing what we do here. Maybe this blog needs a medical procedure, too? Mine is supposed to help my blocked circulation, and I can see kind of a parallel here….

If you are here, reading the blog, do you have any thoughts to share with us about changes we might make? If we start posting more short bits on Facebook, would you follow us over there? Or if you aren’t on Facebook, would we be leaving you out? I guess I am wondering, would you miss us?

We’ll certainly keep everyone posted about whatever changes we decide to make. My apologies for not posting an actual article today!!

Posted in Risky Regencies | Tagged Gail Eastwood, Risky Regencies | 3 Replies

Deportment, Courtesy and All That

Updated on February 9, 2018 by Gail Eastwood

Manners maketh man. William of Wykeham, Motto of Winchester College and New College, Oxford

Company Shocked at a Lady Getting up to Ring the Bell, by James Gillray (1805)

By odd coincidence, both my actor son Graham and Elena’s daughter Gaile are in rehearsals for theater productions of Jane Austen works going up in March. Did someone declare March to be Jane Austen Theater month? Watching one of Graham’s rehearsals recently made me realize one of the greatest challenges these young actors face in trying to capture the historical flavor is bridging the gap between modern and period social graces.

I was asked to attend the rehearsal to share my so-called “expertise” with the cast members about titles, incomes, what constitutes a “gentleman” and who are and aren’t peers, etc. We had a good conversation about the characters in Pride & Prejudice, including things like why Darcy would be friends with Bingley, and why we should have more sympathy for Mrs. Bennett, comical as she is. But once the rehearsal began, I was vividly struck by how modern everyone was on stage, evidenced by the small matters of deportment, manners, and courtesy. I lump those together in the category of “social graces.” Does anyone learn those things anymore?

For example, the cast members needed coaching in how to stand and how to move. The girls needed to learn not to sit with their legs apart or crossed at the knees, and not to stand with a hip thrust out while talking. The young men needed to learn not to slouch, whether sitting or standing, and not to sit down when the women around them were still standing! At the end of the rehearsal, to her credit, their young director made them all practice walking with good, straight posture and a consciousness of how they placed their feet and made their steps. A few of the behavioral “faux pas” I saw seem to have been written into the script –perhaps not the best adaptation of Austen’s P&P out there.

Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield, by Wm. Hoare

In past centuries, aristocratic children were taught the rules of society and polite behavior from an early age. Knowing when to show emotion, how to dress and move elegantly, the rules for when and how to make proper calls, behave at a ball, conduct graceful conversation and act courteously proclaimed them as members of upper society. In his famous series of letters to his illegitimate son on how to behave and succeed in society, the 4th Earl of Chesterfield wrote: “I would heartily wish that you may often be seen to smile, but never heard to laugh while you live. Frequent and loud laughter is the characteristic of folly and ill-manners; it is the manner in which the mob express their silly joy at silly things; and they call it being merry.” (Full text of 400 letters: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/3361/3361-h/3361-h.htm Edited version of “best letters”: https://archive.org/details/bestlettersoflor00chesiala)

High Change in Bond Street, James Gillray (1796)

Failure to master these codes of conduct could mean failure to make a good marriage, failure to be successful in government service or failure in other opportunities both social and practical. Such failure betrayed a lack of “good breeding.” The young learned from parents, tutors and governesses, dance masters, and schools. Of course, that doesn’t mean when they were among their friends that they always toed the line. Most of us have heard of the highly rude behavior of young bucks loitering on Bond Street in Regency London.

In considering our Regency period, it makes sense to recognize that those who were then teaching had learned their social graces in the late 18^th century, influenced by the ideas of the Enlightenment era. One examiner of those ideas was the 3^rd Earl of Shaftsbury, who wrote a series of essays on the subject in the early 1700s. He wrote: “Politeness’ may be defined as a dext’rous management of our words and actions, whereby we make other people have better opinion of us and themselves.” Even across the pond, such worthies as Ben Franklin and George Washington wrote guidelines for proper deportment and courtesy. (Rules of Civility and Decent Behaviour In Company and Conversation by George Washington). A well-known but later resource was The Mirror of Graces (1811) by A Lady of Distinction.

Gaining entrée to this world of special social rules was the ambition of many middle class hopefuls as they gained in wealth but not status. This ambition helped to fuel the popularity of such periodicals as The Spectator, which regularly published advice on polite behavior. The unauthorized publication of the Earl of Chesterfield’s letters in 1774 was something of a scandal, not only for the breach of privacy, but also for exposing to the general public the information it contained. Samuel Johnson, who had a jaundiced view of Chesterfield anyway, claimed the letters “taught the morals of a courtesan and manners of a dancing master.” However, because they were never written for publication, they are all the more valuable for reflecting the reality of the social codes of the time, moral double standards and all.

As Regency writers, we have to be careful not to overlay our period with the increasingly restrictive codes that evolved during Victorian times and are better documented. One such resource was “The Ladies’ Book of Etiquette, and Manual of Politeness: A Complete Hand Book for the Use of the Lady in Polite Society” written by Florence Hartley, published in 1860.

I am old enough that I was sent to “dancing school” as an after school activity, where we were indoctrinated with many of the same rules of behavior and courtesy more than a hundred years later. Did anyone else here suffer through doing that? I think it was during 6^th and 7^th grade. We generally hated it, but we not only learned how to waltz and cha-cha, we learned how to go through a receiving line, how to properly be asked to dance and how to respond, and a million other small tidbits of polite social behavior –much of which is outdated now, quite reasonably.

Yet I wonder, in becoming so relaxed, informal (and egalitarian) in our modern age, in tossing out many of the old rules of behavior, have we lost something that mattered? Or have we simply “leveled the playing field” socially by removing barriers and distinctions that in the past helped to separate classes (and enforce inequality between sexes)? I would love to know what you think!

Posted in Jane Austen, Regency, Research, Writing | Tagged Deportment, Gail Eastwood, Jane Austen, Manners, Regency Etiquette | 3 Replies

Artistic License and 12th Night Traditions

Updated on January 5, 2018 by Gail Eastwood

The English count the 12 days of Christmas as starting on Christmas Day itself, so Christmastide, or the Twelve Days of Christmas culminate tonight with Twelfth Night, ushering in the Christian season of Epiphany. Which customs did people follow to celebrate this during the Regency?

The more research you do to answer this question, the less of an answer you will find, for sources contradict each other and assumptions are made where information is lacking. Twelfth Night itself is ages old, and in earlier times eclipsed Christmas as a major holiday. The rituals and customs associated with it, and with the twelve days, are myriad.

Did people exchange gifts? On Christmas? On Twelfth Night? All through the Twelve Days? Evidence (newspaper ads for instance, and lists of gifts received kept by individuals) would suggest “all of the above”, despite some accounts that say the practice had faded out by late in the Regency. Did they still dress up as “12th Night characters” to entertain each other at parties? Jane Austen mentions this. Still celebrate with 12th Night cake, or choose a King and Queen of the Bean? Perhaps at least in the early Regency, and of course it depends on class, location, and other variables.

“…these venerable customs are becoming every year less common : the sending of presents also, from friends in the country to friends in the town at this once cheerful season, is, in a great measure obsolete: ” nothing is to be had for nothing” now ; and without the customary bribe of a barrel of oysters, or a fish, we may look in vain for arrivals by the York Fly, or the Norwich Expedition….” –Kaleidescope of January 1822.

Elsewhere in his article the writer says: “During the period which elapsed, between 1775 and the close of the 18th century, the periodical observance of old customs, festivals, and holydays, was much more attended to than at present. The recurrence of the time hououred festival of Christmas, was commemorated in Liverpool, to an extent much beyond what is now the usage, though in a degree inferior to the manner in which it was observed in the age which was gone by.”

Were the old customs celebrated in Washington Irving’s fictionalized account of an English Christmas in “Old Christmas” from his larger work, The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent.(published serially 1819-20) truly inaccurate, as claimed by the same writer?? His complaint about Irving’s work: “It is true that the Sketch Book is merely a work of imagination and not of history, and that it describes Mr. Bracebridge as an eccentric elderly gentleman, who was fond of keeping up or reviving ancient customs and old pastimes, but it is so expressed that a stranger to English habits, on reading it, can scarcely avoid falling into the error of imagining that such a mode of celebration, was observed at Christmas, in some parts of England, at the time when that book was written, or at least, in very modern times. Even if all the ceremonies, sports and observances which are there described, ever were commonly practised at Christmas, in English families, it was in an age long since past, and there is no reason to believe that the mode of observing or celebrating Christmas, described in the Sketch Book, ever occurred in England, within the last hundred years.”

The writer seems to ignore Irving’s own words in the piece itself: “I felt an interest in the scene, also, from the consideration that these fleeting customs were posting fast into oblivion; and that this was, perhaps, the only family in England in which the whole of them were still punctiliously observed.”

My belief, as always, is that –humans being humans– not everyone did the same thing, so what may be true for one area of England, or even one village, or one family, might not be true for another. We also know that, especially in the countryside, memories in England were very long and tradition revered.

This is good news for us as fiction writers. We try to recreate an accurate sense of the time period we set our stories in –otherwise, why choose that period? But at the same time, we have a story to tell. Do we have leeway to bend the facts to serve our story?

I would say no, when the facts are definitely known and established. To me, that just undermines the believability the story needs to create. I’m a firm believer in the importance of research! But when the facts are not so definite, when sources disagree or are vague? When the variable eccentricities of human nature come into play? Then I say, bring it on!

I admit to creating a setting –a backwater village that clings to old traditions –in my yet-unfinished 12 days tale, The Lord of Misrule. Even the predicament of my hero, who is stranded in said village and quite accidentally (perhaps) selected to be the Lord of Misrule, is an anachronism, since for the most part as far as we know that custom of having a Lord of Misrule was abolished in the 17^th century (and even that is subject to all sorts of variations, from ruling for 3 months, October-December, to the 12 days of Christmastide, to only ruling on the also abolished Feast of Fools, or only on Twelfth Night itself).

What do you think? Does a lack of solid information give us license to do what we please for the sake of a story? Whatever your opinion on this, I wish you a Happy New Year “and many of them” as one 1805 newspaper encouraged people to say. Happy Twelfth Night, too!

Posted in History, Regency, Research, Writing | Tagged Artistic License, Gail Eastwood, research, Traditions, Twelfth Night | 2 Replies

“Improvements” -Remodeling in the Regency, or, People Playing with Houses

Updated on January 3, 2018 by Gail Eastwood

I am in throes of getting bids for repairing bathrooms in my house. This is not my idea of fun! Getting contractors to come, let alone receiving bids from them after they’ve come, is a struggle. Do you think it was this way back in the Regency when people wanted to remodel or refurbish their homes? I wonder, because people did seem to do a lot of “improvements”.

One of the story threads in The Magnificent Marquess that I enjoyed writing was my hero’s on-going effort to recreate a slice of India through “improvements” to his grand Grosvenor Square residence (which of course fascinates my heroine). Eventually he is persuaded to hold a reception and invite most of London’s elite to come see it. There is no hint that he has any trouble hiring craftsmen and workers to carry out his plans. Nor do any actual accounts I have run across indicate that this was a problem during the Regency. I have the sense that people were more concerned with hiring the “best” builders and craftspeople –the best known, for the purposes of status, as well as the best in quality work.

I am occasionally amazed by the ambitious undertakings they often did…relocating entrances, even stairwells….but it helps to have an understanding of the role not only of changing tastes in home fashion and design, but economics, too. For instance the tax on windows…or changing attitudes towards bathing & cleanliness (in the late Regency adding a room for bathing was one of the things people did).

(see article about shower baths @ Jane Austen’s World; https://janeaustensworld.wordpress.com/2010/11/11/a-19th-century-regency-era-shower/

Prinny spent huge sums on improvements to the various royal residences and set a trend of course by doing so, since people emulated whatever the royals were doing. Between 1787 and 1815 he hired a series of architects to make improvements of his residence in Brighton, ending with John Nash to remake Henry Holland’s villa into the palatial and exotic Brighton Pavillion (1815-1822). He also hired Nash to turn Carlton House, which after spending huge sums to have it built in 1786 the Prince Regent now found “antiquated, rundown, and decrepit”, into Carlton House Terrace (1827-1833). He wanted Nash to replace it by remaking Buckingham House into a new palace (begun 1825), although he ultimately did not live to see it finished, and Nash was dismissed from that project.

Other famous properties improved around this time included Syon House, the showpiece of Robert Adam’s designs from the 1760’s. The 3^rd Duke of Northumberland had the entire house refaced in Bath stone and added a porte cochere in the 1820’s. Wikipedia notes that “This remodelling is thought to have been done by the architect Thomas Cady, who had worked on previous estates belonging to the Percy family.^”The website for Syon House also notes “Domestic imperatives were addressed with a new range of kitchens and the construction of the Oak Passage,” but I’m not sure of the date –that may have been post-Regency, as new technologies became available.

The prominent architect Jeffry Wyatt did most of his work remodeling and making additions and improvements to existing properties, including such great houses as Longleat in Wiltshire, Wollaton Hall in Nottinghamshire and Chatsworth in Derbyshire. According to writer Derek Linstrum, (Linstrum, Derek. “Wyatville (formerly Wyatt), Jeffry (1766-1840).” The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Online ed.), this was to be expected in an era when such work “had become almost an obsession” because of the desire “to answer new demands for comfort and convenience, or to express an advancement in the aristocratic hierarchy.” (See more about Wyatt below.)

The “Survey of London” is one of my favorite sources for checking out what people did to their houses, whether they were living in them or simply owned and rented them out.

http://www.british-history.ac.uk/survey-london/vol40/pt2/pp117-166

While this example for No. 4 Grosvenor Square predates the Regency, I love the details, including the builder Henry Flitcroft’s conclusion at the end of his report to the Earl of Malden. We can all only hope our projects will be “pursued with all proper dispatch”!!

‘The Works at your House in Grosvenor Square go on very well, and as fast as the Nature of them will permit, the Steps are made down to the Lower offices by your Lordshipp’s dressing room, and I have had 3 useless Doorways, and 7 blanks or holow places in ye Lower Story walld up Solid, which is a great strengthening to the Lower part of the House, the Bricklayers are Now at Work upon the Blanks and useless doorways which your Lordshipp Ordered to be walled up on the Hall floor, which will add much strength to ye House, the Plaisterers are got to Work on ye Celing, (fn. 2) ye Doorway of the Front is altering, and when that is done I shall order the wall of the Back stair case to be underpinned. When that is done I hope to be able to report the House secure. ¶‘The fitting up ye Dining Room (which will be a very good one) and the Hall etc. will be pursued with all proper dispatch, and hope to have done the Whole in about two Months time …’. (fn. 74)

The exterior improvements at No. 88 Brook Street (formerly No. 33) are very typical to bring an older house into the current fashion during the Regency, with the longer “French” windows and ironwork: “In 1822–4 C. R. Cockerell made alterations for the lessee Henry Trail costing £3,384. (fn. 99) It must have been at about that period—and therefore just possibly at his hands—that the first-floor windows were lengthened and a continuous iron balcony and projecting Ionic porch added.” The same treatment can be seen in this photo of No. 36 Brook Street.

The story for No. 39 (formerly No. 50) Brook Street is especially interesting because the home’s resident was Sir Jeffry Wyatville, originally known as Jeffry Wyatt (1766-1840), one of the prominent architects working during the Regency. According to a biography at http://www.victorianweb.org/victorian/art/architecture/wyattville/index.html, Wyatt was a member of a well-known dynasty of successful, prominent architects. At the time he was apprenticed to his uncle James Wyatt, the latter was considered “the most fashionable of London architects” and in 1796 was Surveyor-General and Comptroller of the Office of Works. Jeffry, however, followed his own more modern path to success, forming a partnership with John Armstrong, a prominent carpenter and building contractor, whose workshops and timber yard were located on the triangular site at the corner of Brook’s Mews and Avery Row, behind No. 39 (then 50) Brook Street. According to writer Kenneth Allinson, “This was the kind of move which some architects, like John Soane, looked down on; but it demonstrated that “the age of professionalism had arrived” (Allinson, Kenneth. Architects and Architecture of London: A Celebration of the Significant Architects Who Have Contributed to the Fabric of the Capital. Oxford: Architectural Press, 2008 p.131).

Wyatt went on to serve “an extraordinarily distinguished clientele”, including seventeen Earls and “a grand total of four sovereigns.” Wyatt won the commission to “restore, alter and extend Windsor Castle against stiff competition from Sir John Soane, John Nash and Robert Smirke”, and in 1828 he was knighted for his work.

In 1802 Jeffry Wyatt obtained sole possession of No. 39 Brook Street. He was granted a sixty-three-year lease of the house on payment of a fine of £2,556 and, “after reroofing it and carrying out various repairs costing nearly £1,000, he lived there until his death in 1840.”

However, in 1821 “Wyatt was dismayed to find that ‘owing to the vicinity of the great common sewer [i.e. the Tyburn Brook, flowing beneath Avery Row] the water has evidently found its way to the foundation of my house, and it is now absolutely splitting into two pieces’. He calculated the cost of repairs at £3,000 and asked for a longer leasehold term as compensation.

Wyatt did undertake a thorough repair and reconstruction, for the ratebooks record that the house was empty for three quarters of 1821 and half of 1822 and was being ‘rebuilt’. The work comprised complete refronting as well as alterations to the interior. At the same time a large new wing was built extending back at right angles from the house. This contained a drawing office on the ground floor with a gallery above for the reception of clients (fig. 11). In 1823 he reported that these works had cost more than £5,000 and again asked for some amendment of the lease in his favour. Eventually in 1827 a new lease which included the workshops and timber yard at the corner of Brook’s Mews and Avery Row was granted to 1887 at an increased annual rent.”

The most distinctive feature of the rebuilt front (Plate 22a in vol. XXXIX) is the domed, curved corner bow, which originally contained an ingenious circular entrance hall. (The storefront shown in the photo was added in 1927.) The shallow lead dome surmounting the bow is a feature which Wyatt had adopted from the repertoire of his uncle, builder/architect Samuel Wyatt, whilst the stuccoed façade, framed with panelled pilasters, is another distinctive feature of Jeffry Wyatt’s classical work, to be seen at Chatsworth, for instance. Though the original early eighteenth-century staircase, with three alternating patterns of twisted balusters per step and carved step-ends, was retained (Plate 4a, fig. 12), the top of the well was remodelled and given a glazed lantern, the Carolean-style frieze here being derived from Windsor Castle, and evidently a conscious attempt to conform to the ‘antique’ appearance of the staircase. The rear rooms on the ground and first floors have ceilings of exceedingly shallow segmental form. The new gallery at the rear (Plate 4c), approached through high double doors, has a less shallow segmental ceiling, originally toplit, and square alcoves half way down each side, one of which contained a patent stove (now replaced by a chimneypiece). (plate references are in the Survey of London)

Given the extensive work needed on this one, all I can think is how fortunate it was that the leaseholder was a great architect!! And it makes me feel a little better about the extensive work one of my bathrooms is going to need, LOL.

How do you feel about renovating? Chore or pleasure? Have you had good experiences or bad? If you lived during the Regency, would you have been one of those who followed the “obsession” to update your home?

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Posted in Places, Regency, Research, Risky Regencies | Tagged Gail Eastwood, Regency Architecture, Regency Homes, Remodeling | 5 Replies