Notting Hill Living

Door knobs

The door furniture on the early Georgian front door was quite limited. There was a door knob. Brass was too expensive to be used widely so they would generally be cast iron and painted black.

Hinges

Before the 18th century, most hinges were surface-mounted, as you might see on a shed door nowadays. The modern butt hinge, where the hinge is hidden when the door is shut, was invented in 1775. By the start of the 19th century it was almost universally used. Two refinements were a lift-off hinge which allowed the door to be taken off without unscrewing the hinge and the rising butt hinge where the two moving parts were attached in a spiral formation so that the door lifted clear of carpets and rugs when it was opened. Hinges were generally made of wrought iron.

Door knockers

The door knocker was an invention of Georgian times. Metal became cheaper in the Regency period and brass door knockers in the shape of a lion’s head or a sphinx or a crocodile became usual.

Bell pulls

Larger houses had bell pulls

The visitor would pull a knob on the door case and a cord buried in the internal wall plaster would pull a bell inside the house.

Boot scrapers

Outside the front door of a Georgian house, you will often see a metal bar suspended a few inches off the ground between two sets of metal legs. This is a boot scraper, designed to get the mud (and presumably the horse manure) of the Georgian or Victorian street off a visitor’s shoes before he entered the house.

Early locks

The earliest locks were rim locks with the lock and the latch mounted on the outside of the door frame. The typical rim lock had a dead bolt, which locked the door when it was turned, and a sliding latch bolt, which came into play when the dead bolt was not engaged. Like a normal internal latch today, it slid past a plate on the wall when the door was shut, clicked into place, and had to be pulled aside by a turning knob or screw to open the door again.

Modern locks

Mortice locks, where the lock mechanism and a sliding bolt are buried in the door frame, came into general use in the middle of the 18th century. In 1784 Joseph Bramah invented a compact lock which was operated by turning a rotating barrel, instead of a sliding bolt. The Yale lock was an improvement on this design in the 1840s. The Chubb lock, which could be adapted for a near infinite number of key designs, was invented in 1818.

Keyholes

Keyholes usually had escutcheons, which were a metal plate surrounding the keyhole to protect the door. These often had a sliding cover to prevent draughts.

Letter boxes

In Georgian times, there was no postal service. A messenger with a letter often collected a fee from the person they were delivering to. So receiving a letter meant answering the door. But in 1840, the pre-paid postage stamp was invented. From then on, letter plates or letter boxes were added to doors, so the householder no longer needed to be disturbed. Letter plates on Georgian doors are a later addition obviously. Letter plates and door knockers were often combined in Victorian times.

Numbers

It was only in Georgian times that houses began to have street numbers. Door numbers became compulsory in London after 1805. Various methods were employed. Numbers might be painted on the door or the door case by a sign writer, or a plate might be fixed to the door or wall. Usually individual metal numbers were screwed to the centre of the door.

Room doors

Internal doors often had fingerplates to protect the paint against finger marks. Fingerplates were metal, ceramic or glass. Those designed for main living rooms were more elaborate than the simpler plates on bedroom doors. Fingerplates sometimes came in pairs, with the larger one above the door handle and a smaller one beneath. In some cases the door handle and key hole were inserted through the plate. Rim locks were used on almost all doors in a house throughout the Georgian/Victorian era. Mortice locks were only used on important doors. Lever handles were uncommon. Most internal doors had knobs.