New Scotland Yard, Victoria Embankment (geograph 5650866) (cropped)

British Queen Anne Revival architecture, also known as Domestic Revival, is a style of building using red brick, white woodwork, and an

eclectic Eclectic may refer to: Music * ''Eclectic'' (Eric Johnson and Mike Stern album), 2014 * ''Eclectic'' (Big Country album), 1996 * Eclectic Method, name of an audio-visual remix act * Eclecticism in music, the conscious use of styles alien to th ...

mixture of decorative features, that became popular in the 1870s, both for houses and for larger buildings such as offices, hotels, and town halls. It was popularised by

Norman Shaw Richard Norman Shaw RA (7 May 1831 – 17 November 1912), also known as Norman Shaw, was a British architect who worked from the 1870s to the 1900s, known for his country houses and for commercial buildings. He is considered to be among the g ...

(1831–1912) and

George Devey George Devey (1820, London – 1886, Hastings, Sussex) was an English architect notable for his work on country houses and their estates, especially those belonging to the Rothschild family. The second son of Frederick and Ann Devey, he was bo ...

(1820–1886).

Beginnings

The Queen Anne Revival was to a large extent anticipated by

George Frederick Bodley George Frederick Bodley (14 March 182721 October 1907) was an English Gothic Revival architect. He was a pupil of Sir George Gilbert Scott, and worked in partnership with Thomas Garner for much of his career. He was one of the founders of Watt ...

, George Gilbert Scott,

, W. Eden Nesfield, J. J. Stevenson, and

Philip Webb Philip Speakman Webb (12 January 1831 – 17 April 1915) was a British architect and designer sometimes called the Father of Arts and Crafts Architecture. His use of vernacular architecture demonstrated his commitment to "the art of commo ...

in the 1860s; they had used and mixed together brick pediments and pilasters, fan-lights, ribbed chimneys, Flemish or plain gables, hipped roofs, wrought-iron railings, sash windows, outside shutters, asymmetry and even sunflower decorations.

Features

The Queen Anne Revival style has, as the architectural historian Mark Girouard writes, All of these features can be seen in houses, large or small, of the later part of the Victorian era. File:Queen Anne-style tile-hung detail.jpg, Red brick and tile-hung detail, "a little genuine Queen Anne" File:Dutch gable.jpg, "curly pedimented gables
... a little Dutch" File:Bay windows, wooden balconies of 'Queen Anne' style.jpg, "small window panes, ... bay windows, wooden balconies" File:Fancy Oriel window in Queen Anne Revival style.jpg, "little fancy oriels" File:Norman Shaw sunflower panel on his first semis 1877.jpg, "delicate brick panels of sunflowers"

Architects

Norman Shaw

Characteristic features of Shaw's houses, well seen in the

Bedford Park garden suburb Bedford Park is a suburban development in Chiswick, London, begun in 1875 under the direction of Jonathan Carr, with many large houses in British Queen Anne Revival style by Norman Shaw and other leading Victorian era architects including Edwa ...

in west London alongside the work of other contemporary architects interpreting the Queen Anne Revival style, are red brick, walls hung with tiles,

gable A gable is the generally triangular portion of a wall between the edges of intersecting roof pitches. The shape of the gable and how it is detailed depends on the structural system used, which reflects climate, material availability, and aesth ...

s of varying shapes, balconies,

bay window A bay window is a window space projecting outward from the main walls of a building and forming a bay in a room. Types Bay window is a generic term for all protruding window constructions, regardless of whether they are curved or angular, or ...

terracotta Terracotta, terra cotta, or terra-cotta (; ; ), in its material sense as an earthenware substrate, is a clay-based unglazed or glazed ceramic where the fired body is porous. In applied art, craft, construction, and architecture, terracotta ...

and rubbed brick decorations,

pediment Pediments are gables, usually of a triangular shape. Pediments are placed above the horizontal structure of the lintel, or entablature, if supported by columns. Pediments can contain an overdoor and are usually topped by hood moulds. A pedim ...

s, elaborate chimneys, and balustrades painted white. Shaw's eclectic designs freely combined Arts & Crafts,

Georgian Georgian may refer to: Common meanings * Anything related to, or originating from Georgia (country) ** Georgians, an indigenous Caucasian ethnic group ** Georgian language, a Kartvelian language spoken by Georgians **Georgian scripts, three scrip ...

medieval In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire ...

, Tudor, and Wren styles. File:Grims-dyke-main.jpg,

Grim's Dyke Grim's Dyke (sometimes called Graeme's Dyke until late 1891)How, Harry ''The Strand Magazine'', Vol. 2, October 1891, pp. 330–41, reprinted at ''The Gilbert and Sullivan Archive'', 20 November 2011 is a house and estate in Harrow Weald, in nort ...

, Harrow Weald, 1870–2 File:Richard Norman Shaw (1873) Design for New Zealand Chambers.png,

's design for New Zealand Chambers, Leadenhall Street, 1873 File:The Royal Geographical Society, Kensington.jpg, Lowther Lodge, Kensington Gore, now Royal Geographical Society, 1873-5 File:Norman Shaw's first semis, picturesque sunflower panel, corbelled bay window, The Avenue, 1878.jpg,

Semi-detached A semi-detached house (often abbreviated to semi) is a single family duplex dwelling house that shares one common wall with the next house. The name distinguishes this style of house from detached houses, with no shared walls, and terraced hou ...

houses, Bedford Park, 1878 File:1881 Savoy Theatre.jpg,

Savoy Theatre The Savoy Theatre is a West End theatre in the Strand in the City of Westminster, London, England. The theatre was designed by C. J. Phipps for Richard D'Oyly Carte and opened on 10 October 1881 on a site previously occupied by the Savoy P ...

, 1881 File:Richard Norman Shaw 20130408 134.jpg, Allianz Assurance Building, St. James's Street, 1882–3

J. J. Stevenson

In 1871–3, the Scottish architect J. J. Stevenson built his widely-imitated Red House on Bayswater Hill; its name may have been a response to

William Morris William Morris (24 March 1834 – 3 October 1896) was a British textile designer, poet, artist, novelist, architectural conservationist, printer, translator and socialist activist associated with the British Arts and Crafts Movement. He ...

Red House, Bexleyheath Red House is a significant Arts and Crafts building located in Bexleyheath, south-east London, England. Co-designed in 1859 by the architect Philip Webb and the designer William Morris, it was created to serve as a family home for Morris. Const ...

. Both inside and out it was an eclectic mix of styles, with furnishings from different continents and centuries. Outside it was brown brick with red brick dressings; dormer windows with

Flemish gable A Dutch gable or Flemish gable is a gable whose sides have a shape made up of one or more curves and has a pediment at the top. The gable may be an entirely decorative projection above a flat section of roof line, or may be the termination of a ...

s in a flat facade over a cornice; bay windows, and sashes with louvred shutters. File:The Red House, No 3 Bayswater Hill J. J. Stevenson 1874.jpg, The Red House, Bayswater, J. J. Stevenson, 1874

W. E. Nesfield

W. E. Nesfield worked in partnership with Shaw from 1866 to 1869, helping to develop the Queen Anne Revival style. Together they examined the architecture of the English countryside, sketching Kent and Sussex's half-timbered farmhouses and tile-hung cottages, and then the structure and ornamentation of houses in country towns, with their red brick, sash windows, plasterwork, pargetting, joinery and rubbed or shaped brick. From this and a measure of

George Edmund Street George Edmund Street (20 June 1824 – 18 December 1881), also known as G. E. Street, was an English architect, born at Woodford in Essex. Stylistically, Street was a leading practitioner of the Victorian Gothic Revival. Though mainly an eccl ...

's Gothic Revival, they made their "Old English" style. Gradually adding in their exploration of 17th and 18th century classic architecture, they developed their Queen Anne Revival style. File:Stowford Cottage, nr Crewe.jpg, Cottages at Stowford, near Crewe. W. E. Nesfield, 1865 File:Loughton Hall-geograph.org.uk-1226307.jpg,

Loughton Hall Loughton Hall is a large house in Rectory Lane, Loughton, Essex. The architect was William Eden Nesfield, and it is grade II listed with Historic England. It is now a 33-bedroom residential care home for elderly people. History The original Loug ...

, 1878

Other architects

File:Ascott House Wing Geograph-2645403-by-Paul-Shreeve.jpg, Ascott House, Aylesbury Vale.

, 1874 File:The Avenue first Bedford Park houses tiled gable over bay window by E. W. Godwin 1876.jpg, Detached house,

Bedford Park, London Bedford Park is a suburban development in Chiswick, London, begun in 1875 under the direction of Jonathan Carr, with many large houses in British Queen Anne Revival style by Norman Shaw and other leading Victorian era architects including Ed ...

E. W. Godwin Edward William Godwin (26 May 1833, Bristol – 6 October 1886, London) was a progressive English architect-designer, who began his career working in the strongly polychromatic " Ruskinian Gothic" style of mid-Victorian Britain, inspired by ...

, 1876 File:Red brick terrace, Priory Gardens by E. J. May, 1880.jpg, Red brick

terrace Terrace may refer to: Landforms and construction * Fluvial terrace, a natural, flat surface that borders and lies above the floodplain of a stream or river * Terrace, a street suffix * Terrace, the portion of a lot between the public sidewalk an ...

, Bedford Park. Edward John May, 1880 File: The Retreat, Stony Stratford (1892).jpg , Limestone and brick almshouses in Stony Stratford, Milton Keynes. Swinfen Harris, 1892

Developments

New World Queen Anne Revival architecture In the New World, Queen Anne Revival was a historicist architectural style of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It was popular in the United States, Canada, Australia, and other countries. In Australia, it is also called Federation archit ...

and its derivative the Shingle style are related to the British Queen Anne style but with time became increasingly different from it, and in Girouard's view are "both more adventurous and more exciting."

Reception

Professional

Professional criticism of the style began quickly, with comments such as that in the ''Building News'' of 31 May 1872, likely by the church architect J. P. Seddon, that it was "mediaeval, but freely treated, with a good deal of impure classical details, introduced after the fashion of the Queen Anne period, now so much and so foolishly imitated". Other Gothic Revival architects followed suit, though the younger ones were more accepting;

remarked on the "excellence both of the materials and workmanship" of J. J. Stevenson's Red House. When in 1873 the Royal Academy showed off the designs for

's School Board Offices,

Edward Robert Robson Edward Robert Robson FRIBA FSA FSI (2 March 1836 – 19 January 1917) was an English architect famous for the progressive spirit of his London state-funded school buildings of the 1870s and early 1880s. Born in Durham, he was the elder son of Ro ...

& Stevenson's Board Schools, and Shaw's New Zealand Chambers, they were found in Girouard's words "clever, no doubt, but also startling and even shocking".

Amateur

The lay press was more relaxed about the new style; ''The Globe'' of 13 January 1874 called it a natural response to the more assertive Gothic Revival, while ''The Saturday Review'' of 31 July 1875 described its own response as "perfect good humour and equal scepticism", considering the style to be artificially based on an eclectic mix and not at all serious.