General Detail of Gothic Design on Halls, Stairs & Bedrooms

In a era where first impressions were all important, the entrance hall in a Gothic Revival home – as in any style of Victorian house – had to impress visitors and proclaim the social status of the family within. This was easier to do in the large halls found in Gothic country houses and villas than in the narrow corridors of the Victorian terraced house. Nonetheless, the principle remained the same: as much attention was lavished on the décor of the entrance hall staircase and stair parts baluster and spindles and newel post finials as on any other reception room in the house.

From as early as the 1820s, the grand hall began to reappear in larger houses as owners and architects hankered after the great halls of medieval and Elizabethan manor houses, romantically perceiving them to be the heart of the home.  These great halls also inspired the Gothic Revival architects, who then proceeded to create richly decorated and imposing and impressive interior stair ways stair parts baluster spindles newel post finials for their wealthy patrons.

Such halls stairways were not only seen as the entrance to the house but were also used as a banqueting hall or an additional reception room on festive occasions.  Pugin particularly wanted to revive the medieval use of the great hall for social occasions.  As he wrote in True Principles, the gentry in the Middle Ages ‘did not confine their guests, as at present, to a few fashionables who condescended to pass away a few days occasionally in a country house; but under the oaken rafters of the capacious halls the lords of the manor used to assemble all their friends and tenants at those successive periods when the church bids all her children rejoice’. Scott declared in his Remarks on Secular and Domestic Architecture that halls also made ‘a delightful sitting room’, and later in the century, when halls began to be reduced in size, architects like Norman Shaw took up Scott’s idea and designed them as an adjunct of the main living room.

The great halls with their grand stair ways richly carved and decorated with turned carved stair parts baluster spindles and newel posts normally rose to two storeys, with a gallery with carved balustrade panels baluster or spindles on the first floor.  The walls were covered with dark oak wood panelling, usually of oak or mahogany, which was either in a linen-fold design, in the shape of Gothic arches, or richly carved with foliage, heraldic motifs, coats of arms or other symbols relevant to the owner of the house.  The large bay or oriel windows had latticed panes, often inset with decorative stained glass, again displaying heraldry or coats of arms, and there would be an enormous fireplace to heat the room and ward off draughts.  Ceilings were usually beamed – or ribbed - and, if space allowed, even vaulted to recreated a medieval atmosphere.  Pugin’s great hall at Scarisbrick had a spectacularly elaborate timbered ceiling decorated with stencilling and, as at Alton Towers, its own roof projecting above the skyline of the house.

Even smaller Gothic villas and country houses had large entrance halls with magnificent staircases with their impressive carved turned stair parts balusters spindles newel posts and finials, which echoed the features of the baronial medieval hall and stairway . Many also had a vestibule or small porch between the front door and the entrance hall, which was entered by a tall, glass-panelled door.  The vestibule doors, with their rich carving, beautiful stained-glass panes and heavy but intricately worked brass door furniture, marked the entrance into the house proper.  These doors also served a practical purpose by shielding the main hall and staircase from draughts, and in winter they were hung with heavy, draped curtains, suspended on wooden or metalwork poles, to give additional protection from the cold.

Some later Gothic houses had colonnades of tall arches – either pointed or rounded – in the entrance hall framing the staircase and the doors into the main reception rooms.  These arches rose from marble columns adorned with floriated capitals, which are evidence of the influence that Ruskin and his book, the Stones of Venice, had on interior design after the 1850s.

Mahogany or oak stairways with classic or traditional style stair parts baluster spindles newel post finials and wall with wainscoting (panelling), or softwood grained to look like it, were the preferred forms of wall decoration for larger halls, but real wood was expensive for use in smaller homes.  Instead, cheaper alternatives were slabs of paper stained and varnished to look like marble, which could easily be replaced if a section was damaged, or plaster scored while wet to resemble blocks of cut stone and then marbled.  However, Eastlake condemned these as ‘a sham’, although ‘a more excusable on’, and advocated the use of inlaid encaustic tiles on the walls if real wainscoting could not be afforded.  Tile stretching 1-1.2 metres 93-4 feet) from the ground would, he felt, ‘form an excellent lining for a hall or ground-floor passage’, with paint or plaster washed with a ‘flatted’ colour above.

Great halls with their impressive stair ways and turned carved stair parts baluster spindles newel posts and finials ,the Hall and Staircase would have a variety of objects hung on their wall, such as family portraits, tapestries, armour, antlers and coats of arms, while narrow hallways would have a simple mirror or a few small pictures framed in maple wood.

Gothic Revival halls with the grand stair ways were usually furnished with specially created pieces richly carved stair parts with special attention to the design of the baluster spindles newel posts and finials that reflected the architecture of the hall and staircase and which were also embellished with complementary medieval motifs. 

Furniture was usually of oak, giving the hall with its grand stair way an appearance of solidity. In a large room there would be an imposing oak table flanked by chairs of the same wood, with hard seats that were not upholstered.  These chairs often had pointed arched backs and other Gothic designs carved on them.  Downing also recommended an antique settle made of oak or walnut as ‘suitable for a large hall in the Gothic style’.  Other pieces would include a hall stand for hats, cloaks and umbrellas, a grandfather clock, a carved oak cloaks and umbrellas, a grandfather clock, a carved oak ‘ancestral’ chest, a wooden bench, suits of armour, and exotic flowers and foliage.  The floral display could be set in wooden plant holders carved with arched panels, or even in a jardinière like the one exhibited at the Great Exhibition with its colour-printed Minton tile in a gilded brass frame.

If furniture was being bought and not individually made, Eastlake recommended that people look for ‘ancient English’ design to match carved turned stair parts baluster spindles and newel post and finial design  with furniture because of its ‘superior workmanship both as regards joinery and decorative carving’.  As an example, in his Hints on Household Taste his illustration for a hall chair was taken from a Tudor manor house.  For despite the rediscovery of traditional skills inspired by the Gothic Revivalists, Eastlake believed that most ‘modern furniture not made in the traditional way by Guild craftsmen but made in mass production factory’s or ‘pseudo-gothic joinery’, as he called it – was of such poor quality that it ‘becomes rickety in a few years, and rarely, if ever, survives a lifetime’.