PALETTE OF THE PAST

b1 PATRICK BATY

x*J*x

l-Watercolour showing a typical scherne for an early-l9th-century town house. The stucco walls have been treated with a copperas
wash, the ironwork is in various shades ofgreen and the verandah canopy is painted in stripes

"l^{ OME of the old Oueen colour, possibly based orr

\Anne houses olbh"l- historical precedent) is a use-
|--r sea or \\'esrminstcl a lc ful guide for the repainting of
quite suitable for a green or the older house, and espe-
quietly coloured door. but cially one forming part of an
woe betide the Bayswater or architectural group. A little
Earl's Court house that tries knor'viedge of the use ofpairrt
it." Sixty years ago, Basil and colour in the past should
Ionides' recommendation limit the tendency to over-
that such houses should be gild the lily, which is often
painted with either white or prompted by an erroneous
cream sashes and frames, understanding of historical
and polished black doors, precedent.
giving a well-kept 1ook, was Tn simplified terms. the
supposed to suggest that the paintwork of the exterior can
owner had always lived in be broken down into three
the house, having altered areas: the r'r oodr,r ork, iron-
nothing. The use of a yellow, work and the fagade itself.
red or green door was felt to A tour of the Spitalfields
express a new arrival. area, in London's East End,
In terms olhistorical pre- reveals much about our no-
cedent. there is little justi- tions ofwhat colours arc corr-
fication for such a monochro- sidered appropriate lbr the
matic approach. However. exterior of an I Bth-century
with the "quiet" colours cha- town house. The example in
racteristic of traditional lead Fournier Srreet lFig 4) dem-
paint no longer readily avail- onstrales rr ell a carefullv re-
abie, and the seemingly infi- 2-An exarnple of ttsanding", where fine writing sand was cast onto the searched lreatmenl ."ifr.f
nite range of modern paint painted surface while it was still wet, giving the appearance of stone "f
the three elements. While ex-
colours that one is faced ceptions to the rule existed,
with, it is no easy matter to choose with and the others who orefer a sembiance of exterior sashes and frames would have been
conlidence. The result is often a well-cared- unity and order. The bne wiil draw attention an off-white or a pale creamy "stone colour"
for house with over-bright or rather garish to a house, with brightly coloured front door with no picking out of mouldings. The brash
paintwork (Fig 5). and distinctly painted fagade, the other will brillianiwhite. and the blue of-the house in
Of course, colour is a contentious issue, suppress this urge and give consideration to Wilkes Street qFig 5, would not have been
and any discussion is likely to lead to an em- the uniformitv of the street. technicallv possible. even if desired.
ersence of the two schools those who fav- This article is slartins from the rather lhe doorcase would have marched the
our variety and individual free-expression, presumptuous notion that a restrained use of sashes, and the door itselfwould have been in
 House painters of the past used an astonishing uariety of rnaterialsrfrorn blood to road dust, to achieue
special effects, but their basic palette rentained rernarkably unchanged between the lBth century and
1950s-afact oftenforgotten by house ozeners atternpting to recreate historic schentes today.

3-Early colour charts. Until the 1960s there were few changes in the colours used in exterior painting. Early colour cards are a useful
aid in establishing the range ofthose in use, and the narnes given to thern

a darker colour, Two colours

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iia.'e been considered $

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I

lorwarcl, and doors I

rvere oftcn given two I

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exterror surlaces rs I
false, and based on $
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An account of 1771

G*Hffi [t, l-ffi

&
-,€==i
year the gloss is go".e^
rn tl-re iourth rl
you rub the painting
ffiilffit-
|
i roo irs; iiB
100 years (Figs
"";;;
and 11). The invis-
finger, It
your llnger,
rvith yOUr
Wltn it glccrl was more
ible green
IDlc lllorc
rviil come off iike'so 4 and 5-The colour of the woodwork and railings in Fournier Streeto Spitalfields, London, .qenarally used on
much dust.,, follows historical precedent but the colours in nearby Wilkes Street (right) do not $arden gates and
Lonsevitv was railines, and a form
not assufred, and the durability of a modern creamy o{I-white), lead colour (a blue-grey), can still be seen on the signboards in the
paint might i,r'ell have been welcomed by chocolate, olive gre en and invisible green. Royal Parks. It r'vas a favourite of Humphry
ju*"r CrEase, a London paint manulacturei Nearly 50 years 6ter, exactly the sanie col- Repton, andrvas so named as it "harmohises
ivho, in 1808, rvas recommending that ex- ours are referred to as being in general use, rvith every object, and is a background and
terior "rails, gates etc (to) be done in three and, apart from the appeara,nce of B_runs- foil to the foliage.of fields, trees, and plants,
vears least'i.
' Aatrvork wick green in its various forms (Fies 6 as also to flowers".
of about 1811 lists the colours and 7), little had changed by the death of As Dr Ian Bristow has indicated in a
lor outside painting as white, stone colour (a Queen Victoria. recent article for the Spitalfields Historic
Buildings Trust, darker colours ,' and doubtless the latter hue be-
had beeun to appear on external came highly unlashionable.
ioinerv" towards' the end of the Dur:ins the first half of the
iBth ienturv. and were to con- ' 19th centuiv certain colours were
tinue for many years. From the considered -ot. upp.opriate than
1 820s, painted iniitations of wood,
others for the paintirie of iron.
in particular, oak or wainscot col-
,' Repton describes this cleariy, de-
oui, br-rt also mahogany, and both crying the use oilead colour for its
hiehlv varnished, .ime to be used .ereniblunce to an inlerior metal,
oriexternal doors and sashes. Ex-
: and white and sreen to Painted
amples of more recent graining , wood, adding ".". . but if we wish
can still be seen. and in Edin- it to resembie metal, and not aP-
bureh, for instance, the art is still , pear of an inferior kind, a pow-
practised to a high standard. Ian ' dering ofcopper or.gold dust on
Cow has suggestFd th.at the prac- a green ground, makes a bronze.
rice of hansinq curtains over lhe an-d perhaps it is the best colour of
front door-, w:hich would have all ornamental rails of iron."
borne the brunt of the weather, This bronze colour was achie-
has extended the life of the ved using a number of quite d1&.-
grained finish, leading to the ent.recip?s. some producing a blue
patinated form, some rather ereener
survival of this technique (Fie 9).
Turnins Lo ironwork, the use of iFie 6; and both either dustdd with
blue misht seem an unusual choice bronze oowder or not. It was nol
for the-railinss in the Fournier restricte'd to ironwork, being found
Street house lFig a). I{owever, on doors and shutters, too.
blue was regarded
as a prestiuious With regard to the fagade itself,
-l many survivine lease agreements
colour on ironwork in the 7rh
and I Bth centuries, and its use has rell us that whiie the ouGide wood
been found by Dr Bristow on a ' and ironwork tended to be painted
number of ociasions. Whether it "twice over with good and proper
was used much on domestic town oil coiours" durinlg the first'haliol
buildings is debatable, as it would the 19th century. the stucco was to
have been at least two or three be "re-coloured.and re-jointed in

(To't) 1-Hand-painted colour chart showing (clockwise frorn_ 1op feftJ .1.._lt, Prussian blue, bronze greenr purple brown, light
ir,,lrr*ick g"""1, invisible green, lead colouio Ltor.r" green. (Aboie left) 7-Light Brurrswick green and creatn painted woodwork,
characteristic of the 1920s. 1fulaai"1B-Mid-lgth-century treatrnent of c-opperas-washed stucco . (Risht) 9-Walnut-grained front door
times the price of the more commonly used soose quill to make the glassy particles lie imitation of Bath stone". The colour
of the
lead or stbne colour. both of which would to*n. bespite the prestiEe assciciated with stucco was not to be varied, "but always to
have been the more usual choice. such an effect. it w-as admitted that it was be kept in imitation of Bath stone"'
Equally, smalt, a cobalt glass pigment. onlv "the most lovely blue of all others" if This treatment and that of sandins have
described as being the most "glorious colour seen from a distance,'and experiments with been described bv Dr Bristow
in Traniactions
in the world'', r,iould appear an unlikely a modern smalt have shown how uneven the of the Association for the Study and
pisment for the paintin'e'of early exterior result can be (Fig 10). Conservation of Historic Buildings. The
iro-"nwork. Not oniy was iiexpensive. but the From the 17-30s onwards, it was inevi- former was usually carried out in a wash of
method of applitatiott *is particularly table that the recently discovered Prussian copperas, or ferrous sulphate, and lime. "ex-
labour-intensive. and troublesome when blue would have taken over to a larse extent ecilied with.judgement, and finished-with
contendins with ihe elements. To apply it, from smalt for its ease of applicaiion and taste. so as to produce a picturesque effect".
the surface would have been painted with even finish. The aesthetic appeal of a green- Furthermore; the stucco was Iiied in imi-
white lead and, while still racky. dusted over blue rather than a purple-blue seems to have tation of blocks oIstone, and "promiscuously
with the blue, before being stroked with a largely been influenced by technical factors, touched with rich tints of umber". lFigs I
and B). Very occasion-
ally, the effect of lichen
or weather staining could
then be superimposed
using the technique of
"splaihing'', using 6lood.
milk, or oil as a me-
dium. However, this
form ofdeceit tended to
be reserved for "Gothic
buildings of a consid-
erable size", or cottages,
suggesting that it saw
Iittle use on the town
house.
What the Gothic rc-
vival architect A. W. N.
Pugin thought about
these early Victorian
paint effects is not re-
corded, although his
harsh comments about
the "restless torrent of
Roman-cement (stucco)
men" are well knowrr.
Perhaps it was the com-
bination of his pressure,
and the blackening cau-
sed by the atmospheric
pollution of a smok;
city, that Ied to oil paint
qradually replacing the
ferruginous washes.
. Although,the inten-
tron was no longer to
deceive the eye by sug-
gesting blocks of un-
evenly coloured stone,
the stucco fagades of
town houses still tended
to be jointed, while
painted in a uniform
stone colour. Mid- 19th-
century leases and
paintine schedules in-
dicate ihat, with the
appearance ofPortland
cement, the cooler grey
of Portland stone col-
oured paint came to
be seen alongside that
of the warmer Bath
variety.
References to the
pracl ice. of,sanding ap-
pear at the t,egrnnrng of
the lBth century. and
can still be found in
middle
sources from the , straints, and the idea of
of the next century. ':..
Alfred Bartholomew's (op)
Specffications for Practical 18th-century railing head in purple brown. (Aboae) 12 and l3-Regency ironwork tus has gone. Nowadays,
Architecture, of 1846, in- inbronze green, and(right\ early-l9th-centuryrailingheadpaintedininvisible green when one colour costs
triguingly refers to the
painting of .rainwater,pipes "to
imitate stone", presumably not just
in the ubiouitous "stone colour"
that he usually referred to. Could
this have implied the painterly
application of multi-coloured
washes, or the lexturing of the
smooth iron by the casting of dry
sand on to wet oaint?
The l865 soecification for
works to be carried out on one of
the Pall Mall ciubs describes how
the dressings and cornices to all
the windows (which were all of
mas(ic-a form of ce-
ment) were to be lightly
sanded with Portland
stone dust to "corres-
pond as nearly as prac-
ticable with the colour
of the Portland cement
used on the walls". The
desire was presumably
for camouflage rather
than the added protec-
tion that this -would
have offered, as the
stonework of the portico
was to be treated in the
same way.
While in the early
years, protection of the
substrate seems to have
been a major factor in
the strewing of pow-
dered stone) or more
usually, fine white, or
writing, sand (Fig 2), it
appears to have been
superseded bv the use
ol certarn proprretary
paints in the early l9th
century.
Loudon refers to
the Anti-corrosion or
Lithic paint being pre-
pared from ground
glass bottles. the slag
from lead-works, or
even burnt oyster-
shells, and mixed with
colourins matter and
linseed o-il. One Lon-
don colourman was
even using road dust,
gra.ndlf. called Crotia,
and wrth rt made a va-
riety of greens, choco-
late, black, lead colour,
stone colour and a
browny red. Such was
its durability that when
applied to iron. well-
seasoneo LlmDer, or
masonry, it rarely re-
quired renewal during
a man's lifetime. Painr-
ers, as a result, "seldom
recommend it".
TechnoloSy, of
course, has removed
many of the earlier con-
a particular colour be-
lO and ll-Late-l7th-century railing head painted with srnalt, and (rrgftt) rnid- ing used to indicate sta-
the same as the next, the
equivalent is perhaps to choose with
care lrom thi'paleite of the past.
Photograpis:2-5, 7 13,' Gerr2
Toung; 1 4, the author.
flhstrations: I, Gereml,t Butler/
British Architectural Library, RIBA,
London; 6, Papers and Paints Ltd.
14-A nurnber of layers of paint
found on sorne early-l9th-century
railings seen in cross-section under
the rnicroscope, an essential tool
for assisting with the interpretation
ofearly texts