top of page

Previous page: Picturesque   Next page: Shingle Style

Queen Anne Style

Queen Anne (Domestic Revival) style

The Major Influence on Federation Style: 

Queen Anne (Domestic Revival) style

 

The "Domestic Revival" style is an offshoot of the cult of the Picturesque and the Gothic Revival,

Domestic Revival was essentially a style of domestic architecture that incorporated forms, details, and materials found in English vernacular buildings,(local, or ordinary, country buildings) and became popular with late-Victorian English architects, which then came to be named 'Queen Anne'.

(Someone is needed to write the seminal book on "Domestic Revival' style)

 

Characteristics:

 

  • Also called Old English style.

  • the ‘Domestic Revival’ style moved towards cosiness and homeliness, based on buildings such as farmhouses.

  • The vernacular (country) touches of the Domestic Revival had its urban equivalent in the ‘Queen Anne’ style of 1874-5 by English architect Richard Norman Shaw.

Underlying the popularity of this new Queen Anne architecture was the wealth of the Victorian era, and the fortunes made from gold-mining in Australia. Melbourne was the richest city in the world because of the fortunes made from gold.

Characteristics of Domestic Revival
Amesbury, 78 Alt Street, Ashfield
North Park Mansion - Essendon VIC
Wairoa, a heritage-listed Aldgate mansion (SA)
Caerleon,_Bellevue_Hilll.jpg

Above: Caerleon, located in Bellevue Hill, Sydney, was the first Queen Anne Style home constructed in Australia.

 

The Queen Anne style became the height of fashion just as industrialisation was transforming cities and fortunes in the late Victorian era. 

The "Queen Anne style" brought 'Sweetness and Light' in house building and shows a 'softer' feminine decorative influence, compared to the later, more muscular Federation Bungalow style with its large. solid verandah columns.

We distinguish between

 

Queen Anne style houses built before Federation are well represented in Melbourne's inner suburbs, where they were built in (gold-mining) boom times of the 1870s and 1880s. (See Melbourne Queen Anne page)

English "Queen Anne" (revival) style:

 

Pictured left:

English Queen Anne style house, Maida Vale, London - no verandah, white window trim, shadowed entrance,  corner turret on a tower, "Dutch" gable (at left) and tiled panels above stone lintels

 

This was an English style promoted by famous architect Richard Norman Shaw, and probably was derived from imported Dutch, Queen Anne period, and English cottage styles.

 

This style combined fine red brickwork, often in a warmer, softer finish than the Victorians were characteristically using...

  • varied with terracotta panels, or tile-hung upper stories,

  • with crisply painted white woodwork, or blond limestone detailing:

  • oriel windows, often stacked one above another,

  • corner towers, asymmetrical fronts and picturesque massing,

  • Flemish mannerist sunken panels of strapwork,

  • deeply shadowed entrances, broad porches, in a domesticated free Renaissance style

 

Below: Rotha, Grand Queen Anne Mansion in Hawthorn Vic.

Below right: ​'Devon' Centennial Park with Oriel window above a Bay window

"English "Queen Anne" (revival) style
English Queen Anne style house, Maida Vale, London (No Verandah)

Above: Queen Anne style house, Maida Vale, London Below Left: Werai, 92 Finch Street Malvern East, Vic​

Werai, 92 Finch Street Malvern East, Vic
 John Beswicke's Rotha in Harcourt Street Hawthorn
tumblr_mc3flodVtu1r3nwh5.jpg
Caerleon, located in Bellevue Hill, Sydney, was the first Queen Anne Style home constructed in Australia.
Caerleon, Bellevue Hill

The Queen Anne (revival) style of period house lasted for the second half of the 19th century, from 1860 until 1900. 

Queen Anne style has no real connection with the architecture of Queen Anne herself who reigned from 1702 to 1714, although her sister Mary married William of Orange, who then invaded and ascended to the throne of England, bringing with him a host of Dutch influences, including gabled architecture, and sash windows.

Caerleon, Bellevue Hill

Caerleon is a two-storey Queen Anne home built in 1885 in Bellevue Hill, Sydney NSW. The house, was designed for a member of the Fairfax family, Charles B.Fairfax. The architectural design was English

The house was designed by Maurice Bingham Adams (1849-1933) and is an early example of local domestic architecture in the Queen Anne Revival style.

  • Adams was an influencial exponent of this style, which drew from the vernacular designs of medieval and Elizabethan periods, and Caerleon abounds with elements showing this influence.  

  • As with many architects of the day, Adams worked closely with the manufacturers of this architectural details, himself designing such elements as iron overmantels and decorative entrance gates.

 

The house Caerleon represents a rich example of Queen Anne elements:

  • red brick walls with stone dressing, terracotta shingles,

  • balconiesbay windowsverandahs,

  • leadlight windows and elaborate chimneys.

  • It is said to have been the first Queen Anne home in Australia and

  • set the tone for the Federation Queen Anne homes that were to become so popular (i.e. no Gothic influence)

  • It was sold for $22 million in January, 2008.

Caerleon, Bellevue Hill NSW
Characteristics of Queen Anne style
Amesbury_Ashfield 800px.jpg
Amesbury Ashfield med animation.gif

Above: Queen Anne style - Amesbury, Ashfield NSW

Below: Federation Queen Anne style at Yurilla Hall, Unley Park,  Adelaide SA

Yurilla Hall built in the fashionable Edwardian style

Characteristics of Queen Anne Architecture in Australia

.

The style as it developed in Australia was highly eclectic, blending Queen Anne elements with various Australian influences.

Old English characteristics like

  • ribbed chimneys and

  • gabled roofs

and Gothic influences such as

  • towers, and coloured glass panes

were combined with Australian aspects like

  • encircling verandahs, designed to keep the sun out
    (e.g. Amesbury pictured at left)

and American influences such as wooden shingles.

Below left: Ribbed chimney stack     Below right: Four gables visible under the wide roof

cottage-chimney-stack-pots-photo-old-ken
Craignairn2-low.jpg

Federation Queen Anne Architecture

Federation Queen Anne became the most popular style for suburban houses built between 1890 and 1910 in an Australian building boom at the time of the Federation of Australian States into the Commonwealth of Australia. 

Before 1969, 'Federation' was known as 'Domestic Queen Anne'.

 

  • The style often utilised Tudor-style woodwork and elaborate fretwork that replaced the Victorian taste for wrought iron.

  • Verandahs were usually a feature,

  • Image of the rising sun in gables and decorations with Australian wildlife;

  • Leadlight and circular windows, at the front of the house,

  • The front bedroom projected forward of the verandah in double-fronted examples of asymmetry,

  • Featured Gothic turrets and towers, with conical or pyramid-shaped roofs, more often in Victoria.

Read more: 

 

One outstanding example of this eclectic approach is Urrbrae House, in the Adelaide suburb of Urrbrae, South Australia, part of the Waite Institute.

 

Below: Three views of Urrbrae, showing ribbed chimneys, verandahs and two gables

Urrbrae House.jpg
urrbrae-house-urrbrae-waite-waite-campus
Earliest Queen Anne in Australia
 'West Maling', Queen Anne Federation home, 663-665 King Georges Road Penshurst, Sydney  NSW
Queen Bess Row in East Melbourne

Earliest Queen Anne in Australia:

 

These houses, although built around the same time, had distinct styles: 

 

The Queen Anne style soon became increasingly popular, appealing predominantly to reasonably well-off people with an "Establishment" leaning.

Queen Anne Gallery by Dean - Melbourne

Queen Anne Gallery by Dean - Melbourne

Queen Anne influences

Architect Richard Norman Shaw

220px-Norman-shaw.jpg
220px-Norman-shaw.jpg

The Queen Anne style was introduced in England by architect Richard Norman Shaw.

Richard Norman Shaw worked, among others, for the artists John Callcott Horsley and George Henry Boughton, and the industrialist Lord Armstrong. He designed large houses such as CragsideGrim's Dyke, and Chigwell Hall.

As popularized by Shaw, the style was really a revival—intended to suggest the forms of England’s Elizabethan and Jacobean eras some 300 years prior.

Shaw's early country houses revived cottage materials like half timber and hanging tiles, with projecting gables and tall massive chimneys with "inglenooks" for warm seating.

 

Shaw's houses soon attracted the misnomer the "Queen Anne style". As his skills developed, he dropped some of the mannered detailing, his buildings gained in dignity, and acquired an air of serenity and a quiet homely charm. Wikipedia

1024px-39_Frognal.jpg

Above: The Queen Anne style house in Frognal UK, built for Kate Greenaway by Richard Norman Shaw

Cragside3.jpg

Above: Cragside is the prototype of Queen Anne design, by architect Richard Norman Shaw

 

Cragside is a Victorian country house in  NorthumberlandEngland

It was the home of William Armstrong, first Baron Armstrong, founder of the Armstrong Whitworth armaments firm. An industrial magnate, Armstrong also displayed his inventiveness in the domestic sphere, making Cragside the first house in the world to be lit using hydroelectric power.

800px-Grims-dyke-main.jpg

Above: The main entrance to Grim's Dyke which is the name of a house and estate in Harrow Weald, in northwest London, England.

The house was built from 1870 to 1872 by Richard Norman Shaw for painter Frederick Goodall and named after the nearby prehistoric earthwork known as Grim's Ditch.

Queen Anne influences
Architect Richard Norman Shaw​
The Gables - Malvern
The Gables - Malvern
The Gables - Malvern
Edzell - Toorak
Darnlee - Toorak
Darnlee - Toorak
Tay Creggan - Hawthorn
North Park Mansion - Essendon
North Park Mansion - Essendon
The Towers - Kew
Essendon Architecture
Lugano - Northcote
Lugano - Northcote
Mandalay - Northcote
Bundoora Homestead - Melbourne
Bundoora Homestead - Melbourne
Davies House, 5 Wilismere Rd Kew
Kew Architecture
Brighton Architecture
Homerton House - South Yarra
Illawarra - Toorak by Dean-Melbourne
Illawarra - Toorak by Dean-Melbourne
Middle Park Architecture
Albert Park Architecture
Dalswraith - Kew
Dalswraith - Kew
Illawarra - Toorak
Queens Bess Row - East Melbourne
Rand-Jan28-09005_web.jpg
Architect Philip Webb

Architect Philip Webb

Philip Webb.jpg

 Philip Speakman Webb (12 January 1831 – 17 April 1915) was an English architect sometimes called the Father of Arts and Crafts Architecture.

 

He used cottage architecture to  demonstrate his commitment to "the art of common building." - Wikipedia

Rear_of_Red_House,_Bexleyheath_-_geograp

Above: Red House is a significant Arts and Crafts building located in the town of Bexleyheath in Southeast LondonEngland.

Co-designed in 1859 by the architect Philip Webb and the designer William Morris, it was created to serve as a family home for the latter, with construction being completed in 1860.

Morris was deeply influenced by Medievalism and Medieval-inspired Neo-Gothic styles are reflected throughout the building's design.

It was constructed using Morris' ethos of craftsmanship and artisan skills and is an early example of what came to be known as the Arts and Crafts movement.

Keep Reading:

​​

References or Further Reading
bottom of page