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London is an architectural patchwork of cottages and terraces, mansion flats, mews and tower blocks. And then there's the townhouse. Definitions vary for this apparently all-encompassing name - for what is a townhouse? Is it no more than a house in town? If so, what is a "town"? Or is it a particular kind of house? Can it be terraced, or is it a standalone property? And now London has a few more townhouses.
Earlier this year, the long-awaited Chelsea Barracks site launched 13 townhouses as part of the £3.5bn new neighbourhood. With roof terraces, orangeries, underground parking and staff accommodation, prices for the properties, which range from 8,000 to 15,000 sq ft, start from £37m. Few such as these, with their own front door and garden, are built today.
Historically, a townhouse did what it said on the tin - provided a house in "town" for a wealthy family who also had property in the country. For the grandest families, these houses were palaces such as Spencer House, commissioned in 1756 for the 1st Earl Spencer (and still extant at 27 St James's Place), and Devonshire House on Piccadilly, built in 1740 for the 3rd Duke of Devonshire. Most, though, were built as terraced houses, sometimes around a garden square, with three or four storeys. Being relatively tall and thin in appearance, their rooms stacked logically on top of one another. They had basement kitchens, with highceiled reception rooms on the floor above, accessed via a set of stairs from the street, an iron railing separating the public and private. Upstairs were the main bedrooms, and the servants' quarters above those. These terraces were, and are, workable, liveable, homely - efficient, even.
For some...