Why are kitchens at the back?

[Dancergirl]

We have a lovely house that we moved into 7 years ago. The only thing is, the kitchen is at the front which my mum keeps telling me is 'wrong'. I'd never really thought about it before but now I have, the vast majority of houses I've seen have the kitchen at the back!

In some ways it's quite nice having a front kitchen - my sink and hob are both under the front window and it's a pleasant view to look out of. And I have a side door to the kitchen that leads to the garden. I suppose the downside is that I can't see the children in the garden but that's only a relatively short term problem while they're young. Our lounge and family room are at the back opening out into the garden.

So can someone explain to me why kitchens are usually at the back and is there some design fault with our house?

Ours is at the front - and I like it like that - although we are off the street and up some steps so no-one can look in or anything.
I like it like this

To look out over the garden and in the case of older houses to allow easy access to water, before it was installed indoors, I should imagine.

Mine is at the front too (house built 2006), I would much rather it was at the back so I could look out over my tidy garden rather than over the street and the house of the family opposite who are complete slobs with overflowing bins and old tat hanging about the front. But we can't have everything we want, can we?

I think in the past it was also because (in larger houses anyway) kitchens were where the servants worked, so they weren't part of the house that people wanted to 'present' to the world. So they were either in the basement or at the back. The 'public rooms' were where guests were entertained, and so these were at the front.

Agree with Midnight - I think it has more to do with historical precedent and convention than anything else. Different layouts can make you rethink how you live and function in a house, though.

Having said that, we viewed a couple recently with the kitchen at the front and it did indeed feel 'wrong'. I don't spend so much time in the kitchen that it would be my prefered vantage point for keeping an eye on the children out the back, but in one of these houses, the front kitchen had a dining bit with a floor-ceiling window, looking out directly onto the cul-de-sac pavement! I couldn't see myself relaxing in scuzzy pjs having breakfast with the neighbours walking by!

Historically, because they were tacked on later (along with the plumbing). No reason these days why they can't be at the front, except that the bathroom is often over the kitchen so if you have that setup you might have a soil pipe running down the front of the house.