How to Identify a Georgian House (2024)

FAQs

How do I identify a Georgian house? ›

Georgian home key features

Sash windows with smaller panes – tall windows on the first two floors and smaller windows on the top storeys. Symmetrical flat exterior and balanced interior layout. Stucco-fronted exterior, meaning it is rendered in a plaster material.

Georgian houses are characterized by their: Rigid symmetry in building mass as well as window and door placement. Brick, stone, or stucco (brick is most predominantly used) Hip roofs, sometimes with dormers.

A classic Georgian home is square or rectangular, made of brick, and features symmetrical windows, shutters, and columns. “Grand entrances were often embellished with pediments, arches, and columns, and interior spaces featured high ceilings, window headers, and crown molding,” says Muniz.

Georgian homes typically have well-developed classical cornices, often with larger block modillions or smaller teeth like 'dentil' moldings. After 1750, entry porticos, dormers, decorative quoins, central belt courses, central gables with two-story pilasters, and roof balusters became more prevalent.

Characterised by high ceilings, dramatic columns, delicate wallpaper and pastel colour schemes, Georgian interiors evoke sophistication and elegance. If you're looking to restore your period property or fancy tapping into the Georgian style in a new build, we've got you covered.

Georgian style houses have high ceilings, usually 10-12 feet high, with decorative molding and cornices. Rooms are defined and boxy, with all spaces on the first floor designed for gathering, and private spaces like bedrooms and bathrooms relegated to the second floor.

The disadvantages

While the separated rooms might have worked well for 1700s-era entertaining, they aren't as suited for modern living. Today, many homebuyers are looking for open living areas with sight lines from the kitchen to the living room. That might be hard to find in Georgian homes.

Georgian front doors tend to be of solid construction, featuring four, six or eight panels. The panels are arranged symmetrically and are often embellished with intricate mouldings or raised features. As mentioned, symmetry was paramount in Georgian design.

The Georgian Period

Broadly speaking it covers the 18th century and is generally identified by very simple facades; buildings were designed in symmetry and often appeared quite plain. They were usually built with brick and stone and have sash windows.

Georgian homes tend to be made up of small and cosy rooms with many windows and high ceilings which creates a feeling of freshness and space. When designing a home that is not of the Georgian period but aspires to capture its aesthetic, we often propose sectioning rooms rather than choosing an open-plan layout.

How to identify a Georgian house? ›

The Georgian period covers the reign of George I to George IV. Broadly speaking, it covers the 18th century and is generally identified by very simple facades. It is all about symmetry, and Georgian properties often appear quite plain. They are often built with brick and stone, sash windows, and later with stucco.

If you ask most people to sketch a Georgian house, it will most likely be a rectangle with a door in the center, double-hung windows, a hipped roof and brick.

The Georgian style is highly variable, but marked by symmetry and proportion based on the classical architecture of Greece and Rome, as revived in Renaissance architecture. Ornament is also normally in the classical tradition, but typically restrained, and sometimes almost completely absent on the exterior.

As is often the case with period properties, many homes built in the Georgian era are listed. This means they are protected from changes to their structure in a number of ways.

A significant difference in the exterior façade is the presence of a projecting portico at the main entrance that is frequently present in the Federal style and not common absent in the Georgian style.

Georgian properties are defined as those built between 1714 – 1830, during the reigns of Georges I-IV. Sometimes the term includes late Georgian properties, which are similar in style and were built between 1830 – 1837 when King William was on the throne.