Room Nomenclature

Nomenclature: noun, the devising or choosing of names for things.

I have been pondering on how we should refer to the rooms on the ground floor as the final layout is now becoming clearer. Should we use the old Georgian/Victorian room names, or should we go with the norm and use the modern equivalents? The layout, and the decorative aesthetic we are using here tries to give a nod to the era in which the house enjoyed its heyday, which we believe was around the turn of the century. The rear of the house is the oldest, and from my research, we think it goes back to around seventeen hundred or just before, with the first tenant recorded here in seventeen hundred and nine. There are tell-tale signs that this is a house of two halves. From the outside you can see that the stone walls at the rear are constructed in a haphazard way, known as rubble-wall construction. Neither are there any quoins on the two rear corners of the house. Inside, some of the surviving doors and architraves are clearly Georgian, doors featuring six, rather than four panels and the architraves featuring fine ogee and scotia detailing. Whereas at the front of the house, which we believe is a huge Victorian extension, the stonework has been laid formally, the stone used for exterior door and window surrounds are dressed, and inside, four panel doors are complimented by ten-foot-high ceilings, plain cornicing and extremely deep skirtings. It was during this period that the house enjoyed life as a gentlemen farmer’s residence, sitting on thousands of acres covered with thousands of sheep. Wool was a premium product in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and the nearby town of Hawick, was a centre for the production of sought-after fine woollen undergarments, cashmere and tweed. The landlord at the time, one of a string of Duke’s of Buccleuch, was keen on agricultural reform and supported his tenant farms to become prosperous. So, investment in their houses, reflecting the growing wealth of the area, became the name of the game. That is why our house doubled in size.

The layout on the ground floor follows the shape of a square bracket, with the servant’s quarters to the rear and the principal receptions rooms to the fore, with large, dual aspect windows facing south and east. To the rear there is an old, stone flagged room with wainscot panelling and meat hooks in the ceiling. Adjacent to this, is another large north-facing room, which is currently our temporary kitchen. A narrow back passageway leads through a lockable door, separating the servant’s quarters from the main house, and connects to the main hall. The hall gives access to the main staircase and three reception rooms. The first of these is our library, which enjoys views across the river to the hills eastward and down the front driveway to the south. Our library houses our fairly extensive collection of books, maps and other related paraphernalia, it is also home to my desk and is where I sit to write. The room next door to the library overlooks the formal garden, this will become our sitting room. Or, should it be our Drawing Room? The whole idea of a drawing room was that it was a room that one used in the evening to withdraw to, after dinner. Isn’t that how we use our sitting rooms today? I like the idea of withdrawing, to me it conjures ideas of cosiness and privacy, suggesting a room to while away the evening hours in front of a crackling log fire.

During our mega, two and a half year long property search, we viewed many grand period properties, and I learned a lot about the nomenclature of rooms and the habits of the people who lived and worked in big houses. Drawing Rooms, for instance where very often found on the first floor, adjacent to the principal bedroom suites. This was to allow the owner of the house, and perhaps their guests, to retire to bed without having to manoeuvre the staircase! Laundry rooms were also often found on the first floor, albeit near the nursery, an idea that really makes sense when you stop to think about it. If one couldn’t manoeuvre the stairs after sitting in ones drawing room, try one of your servants attempting to scale them with a heavy pile of pressed linen sheets! Contrastingly, the ground floor was often the preserve of the Parlour, a Victorian invention designed as a place to receive daytime visitors and towards the rear, the main servant’s rooms. Servants’ quarters usually included the Kitchen, from the latin ‘coquere’ meaning to cook, a room for cooking and meal preparation. The Scullery, from the old French ‘escuelerie’ meaning ‘dish’ and the name given to a room or area used for washing dishes and cleaning vegetables. The Butler’s Pantry, as the name suggests, often kept locked and used for keeping expensive preserves or other kinds of valuable ingredients, and often adjacent to the housekeeper’s office, where the household accounts would be kept. Outside in the yard there would be a Wash House and sometimes even a Diary with stone or slate shelving to keep milk cool for making butter and cheese, however our diary stands away from the main house and is a little detached building.   

So, I think I have persuaded myself that I prefer the old-style room nomenclature. The names tell a story so much more evocative than the modern alternatives. So, our slightly remodelled ground floor layout will now include a wash house, a cooks kitchen, complete with wood-fired range, a scullery cum passageway accommodating dish and vegetable washing along with housekeepers’ storage, and a formal dining room, with a rear door to the scullery and kitchen and a second to the main hallway. From the hallway there will be access to a cloak room with adjoining water-closet, the drawing room, the library and the front porch.

Thank heaven the name for bedrooms haven’t changed... or have they?