London Town Houses

On 08 May 2005, Tim Walters wrote

The key to understanding general sizes of 18th/early 19th townhouses -- given the Bath link, I assume that's what you're interested in -- are the "1st-through-4th-Rate" houses specified under the London Building Acts of that cenetury.

The sizes were fairly standardised (the "rate" referred to rateable value based on size, rather than quality, but the two were obviously linked). I've posted plans for illustrative examples of each type; these are scaled, so you should be able to work out rough dimensions for them:

Great plates. Thanks. TB

Where is, or what was used for a bathroom in these homes?

On 09 May 2005, Thurston Howell wrote

Baths (which tended to be irregular) were in a moveable bathtub, filled when required.

The toilets -- earth closets and/or chamber pots at this stage; water closets later -- are shown as a small room with a hole in a seat. On the four plans they're marked:

This is marvellous! Thank you very much indeed!

I'm particularly interested in the first- and second-rate properties. I understand that some houses were built with two basements. I presume the lower was for storage.

Do you happen to know of houses with this feature in the Chelsea area?

Thanks in advance for any additional input.

Tim

On 09 May 2005, Tim Walters wrote

Not that I'm familiar with; as far as I know, two basements are very rare in London houses. (I've seen double basements in parts of Windsor Castle -- the lower one used for wine storage -- but that tended to be from sequential building stages -- that is, where an early basement was retained when the building was demolished and the ground level raised.)

For what it's worth, I'd have expected double basements to be found more often in houses built into fairly steep hills (like those around Bath) -- of which there aren't a lot in London!