The Victorian No 73 July 2023

Not only do fixtures provide a useful guide to the dating and evolution of historic buildings, but the decorative schemes may also be informative. The Victorian (No 73, July 2023) looks at interior decoration with Wendy Andrews, a committee member of the Wallpaper History Society. She explores the extraordinary resources of the 24 Cowtan and Sons order books for wallpaper held at the Victoria and Albert Museum. Cowtan’s client list read ‘like an extract from Debrett’s’, with orders from Buckingham Palace, Hampton Court Palace, Woburn Abbey, Highclere Castle, Alnwick Castle and Holkham Hall.

Owners of other grand houses, townhouses and vicarages ordered wallpapers for a variety of interiors. These included drawing rooms, dining rooms, boudoir rooms, nurseries, and bathrooms. Wallpapers for servants’ accommodation included butlers’ pantries, housekeepers’ parlours, cooks’ sitting rooms, and cottages for coachmen and gardeners. The books reveal the use of various styles of wallpaper for different rooms, and varying quality of papers. Servants’ rooms and cottages were usually papered in cheaper, but nevertheless bright and cheerful, machine-printed papers of simple designs. Some of these designs may survive, or may be obscured by later overpapering, but when inspected may form a useful basis for dating interiors. The existence of the Cowtan order books, and other publications on historical wallpapers, may prove useful.

Elsewhere in this issue, Olivia Horsfall Turner, a senior creator at the V&A, looks at the transformative role of wallpaper designs by Owen Jones which are featured in her new book on the subject.

A short article by Lieske Huits discusses the issue of dust and style in the Victorian interior. Elizabeth Crawford looks at the evidence of the Garrett cousins’ decorating business, using the auction catalogue of the sale of the contents of their warehouse in 1899. R&G (Rhoda and Agnes) Garrett, house decorators, had been founded in London in 1874 after training with the architect JM Bryan. The auction catalogue reveals a significant degree of late- 19th-century business acumen.

This article originally appeared in the Institute of Historic Building Conservation’s (IHBC’s) Context 178, published in December 2023.

--Institute of Historic Building Conservation

Related articles on Designing Buildings

• Conservation.
• English architectural stylistic periods.
• Heritage.
• Historic England.
• Historic environment.
• IHBC articles.
• Institute of Historic Building Conservation.
• The Victorian, March 2023 (No 72).
• The Victorian, No 71, November 2022.
• The Victorian Society's Top 10 Endangered buildings 2019.