Guild guide to doing it old style

FOR those of us who remember anaglypta wallpaper painted in dark brown gloss and the damp, stuffy, front rooms of our grandparents, Victorian styling can be a turn-off.

Still, silent convents with lancet doorways and pitch pine joinery, creaky old hospitals in brown and cream were the first introduction to Victorian architecture for a vast majority.

However, these are just the institutional remnants of a long and interesting architectural period which saw the transition to mass production from individual craftsmanship. This was also the time when the concept of ‘home’, as in ‘an Englishman’s home is his castle’ was fleshed out and began to evolve into the modern perception of the phrase.