Why don't they make properties like they used to? Victorian etc?

[soldieronandon]

I understand that they try to make as many houses as possible as cheap as possible now. But obviously there are some people with money who would prefer higher quality like the old Victorian and Edwardian style etc. Why don't they make those kinds anymore? I just see red bricks everywhere, even when big expensive houses are made.

Profit
its cheaper to build a cheap house that costs a fortune,than it is to build an expensive solid house for the same money

it always boils down to money

Its a shame really

Not all Victorian/Edwardian houses were good quality, you don't see the ones that fell down or were condemned and demolished! A lot of postwar building was slum clearance of the worst of that stock.

Style wise it's about fashion, ornate Victorian styling was trying to mimic the detailed interiors of the rich, whereas now rich people tend to have minimal and plain houses.

I live in a Victorian terrace, I'd happily swap for something modern with better insulation and fewer spiders, slugs, cracks in the wall etc!

I'd agree profit I bought my house for 570K it'd cost 680K to rebuild or it would of done 10 years ago probably gone up like all builds nowadays. Old farmhouse with 2 6" stone walls. My house was built 250 years ago and will probably be here in another 250 years. I do wonder about the longevity of new builds.

Cost and loss of craftsmanship. Ornate mouldings, timber windows, stained glass windows, ironmongery, a lot of it is very very costly to make and implement.

I once read that the mathematics/ engineering/ architecture wasn’t “as good” way back when so builders weren’t entirely sure what size beans they’d need, for example, and would therefore overcompensate. They thought they might need a 6ft beam so erred on the side of caution and put in an 8ft beam. Whereas now there is far more confidence in that 6ft beam, so builders can get away with doing the absolute minimum.

I suspect there are lots of houses built with more interesting features and a better spec finish, but they’re not the ones mass produced by huge building firms trying to maximise profit for their shareholders at every opportunity.

The build quality of Victorian houses is nothing special. The decoration, ceiling heights and window sizes are what makes them lovely.

Decoration is now too expensive as there are only a few craftsmen rather than huge industries churning out carved bricks, corbels, stained glass etc. Also I guess developers may be worried it will go out of fashion (like it did in the mid century era - lots of Victorian features ripped out/covered up then).

High ceilings are gone due to profit (squeezing in more floors) and both high ceilings and large windows got done for by regulations about energy efficiency.

I don’t understand your comment about red bricks everywhere. Most Victorian and Edwardian houses were red brick?

New builds are not all the same though. Plenty are well built. All have adequate foundations. All are passing building regs. They all have heating. Most have gardens and not just a yard. They don’t share a pump. All have sewers and clean water. They have double skin walls. They can be insulated. They have double glazing. Everyone said 60s houses wouldn’t last. They have.

The possible problem areas are wooden windows that rot. Also cheap kitchens and fittings. I do see lots of stone houses where stone is the building material used in that area. Wood is used as cladding. All sorts of cladding can be used: colours and wood.

Cost to the buyer matters too. If builders lose money, they stop building. Fewer houses equals price increases. Of course profit matters. They are not charities. The other alternative is buy an older house. Some, you will find, are poorly built: damp and single brick walls and no insulation!

I have a friend who lives in a huge double fronted semi built by a master builder years ago. The house is lovely to look at and has a massive hallway with rooms to either side. The gardens are huge and he does not have the time to spend on them so he has a gardener.
Yes, it was well built but his heating bills are scary and they keep having to make improvements to bring it up to a decent standard. They only have one bathroom for example
Lovely house but I would rather have an energy efficient new build with solar panels and better laid out living space within. A super kitchen easy to clean and a utility room built for purpose.

What is wrong with red bricks?
My house is red brick. Most of this town is...?

I live in what would have been quite a smart Victorian house. The ceilings are high, the rooms are a decent size and it has huge windows and lovely details.

But the foundations are about a foot deep, there isn’t a single right angle in the place, those beautiful big windows let all the cold in and need annual upkeep. The lovely mouldings attract dust and I can’t afford a scullery maid to dust them. The walls, on the inside of the brick, are made of something with the structural integrity of cream cheese so the dining room curtain pole has fallen down 6 times since we first installed it 10 years ago. And there is a certain amount of damp that one just has to live with. Plus the holes for the spiders, slugs and draughts to get in as previously mentioned.

And all of the above is not for want of upkeep or DIY skill on our part; we gutted it when we bought it and we’ve spent more than we paid for it a fortune on doing it up and maintaining it.

Give me a 60s house over Victorian any day.

The vast majority of Victorian houses are a narrow rectangle with three or four rooms on the ground floor all in one line off a very narrow hall. Not great to live in. I much prefer a square footprint, or wide rectangle.

I've always said this! I want new build specs in an old fashioned style. Isnt that what that town "Prince Charles built" was all about?

www.architectmagazine.com/design/behind-the-facade-of-prince-charless-poundbury_o

www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2016/oct/27/poundbury-prince-charles-village-dorset-disneyland-growing-community

I've visited and thought it was rather nice looking!!!

Because most people don’t want their toilet in a outhouse, or their kitchen completely separated from the rest of the house 😁

They also don’t want a parlour that is used only for visitors, or to heat their home with coal fires. They don’t want a single bathroom off the kitchen.

They want proper foundations that are more than one foot deep and will protect against subsidence. They want insulation and proper double glazing and underfloor heating and a degree of open plan.

The way we live has radically changed since Victorian times. We entertain differently, we use our houses differently, we have tellies and PS4s and iPads etc. We cook differently. We don’t have live in maids. We don’t think it’s normal to have 4 children sharing a room. We don’t like small pokey rooms. We value light.

By the way red brick houses are very Victorian.

Absolutely to this! I’ve owned two houses, one was built in 1857 and the current one was built in 1965. The current one “wins” hands down for pretty much everything. One big difference between the two which hasn’t been mentioned on this thread is plot size. Both were detached but the old one was very typical Victorian that it was “crammed in”. Whereas the current one has been built on a long road of identical houses which were all given a big plot of land.

I can't imagine what people felt in victorian times when rows upon rows of terraced streets were thrown up. Many look quaint now (not all) but it must've been pretty horrifying at the time. Easy to look back with rose coloured specs. I'd quite like a ugly 60s house now with massive windows

My dining room was once a whole cottage. The typical Victorian workers cottage in the countryside was a hovel. Ours was one up, one down. It’s “country” built. This is basically stone, flint, bits of brick snd wood held together by mortar. It certainly doesn’t last without maintenance.

The family lived in one room with an earth floor snd a cooking stove fitted into a chimney. Narrow wood stairs in the corner led to a single room upstairs. Ours was built in around 1835. The Victorian house for agricultural workers didn’t have several rooms and several bedrooms. It was literally a hovel.

It's not the fact that they are new builds that I dislike them.

If you look at Victorian terraces you'll see they were built around public transport. New builds are just car parks with houses on them, developers should prioritise public transport over needing a car to get everywhere.

Most Victorian and Edwardian are red brick?!

I read a lot of Victorian novels and Dickens, Trollope, even Conan Doyle comments with horror in Sherlock Holmes about the rows of faceless identical terraces "filling in" the spaces between the old high roads between what used to be the villages of south London. Really interesting to think that London must have been a complete mess of a building site for years.

@Stellaris22
You might not be aware of what planning authorities are doing regarding car parking these days. They are cutting back on spaces for residents. They also make roads narrow to slow cars down. However residents like cars. They park everywhere.

I live in a new build, and I’d love to be back in a Victorian house with walls that you can put shelves on.

I do love all the decorative features that come with some Victorian builds, but tastes and fashions have changed.

Houses built now might not last 250 years but neither will I!

Most of my house is new. I can put shelves up. You just have to know what to use.

That’s exactly why you buy Edwardian and not Victorian 🙂we have a 2m wide entrance hall leading to two receptions (naturally open plan) with a third reception / dining room running in parallel with the second reception. e.g. the footprint is double room width, totalling over 6m wide. You also get a lot more light in Edwardian houses.