Reading the Regency

Property - An Introduction

In the commercial area of Cheapside, houses let for £200 per annum in 1806. Also in that year, a house in Weymouth Street, containing 6 rooms, 2 kitchens, cellars, yard, and a piece of ground for a garden, was available to rent for £28 a year.

In 1808, a "very good house" in Frith Street, Soho Square, furnished, could be rented for two and a half guineas per week.

In 1811, a London shopkeeper rented a country house with a garden and a small field, four miles from London, and paid sixty pounds a year. The family spent £500 on furnishing it.

In 1812, a furnished house was available in the countryside just beyond London, one mile from Russell and Brunswick Squares, "fit for the reception of a respectable family". It was to be let for a year for 100 guineas, which was supposedly "much under its value as the owner could no longer occupy it".

In 1814, a house in Hart Street, Bloomsbury Square, "fit for the reception of a respectable family" was available to rent for 80 guineas a year. For the same price in 1820 you could rent a small furnished cottage in Hampstead, with two parlours, three bedrooms, a kitchen and a garden.

Of course, when you rented a house you still had certain bills and property taxes to pay. In 1812, a house rented for 50l per year incurred the following additional costs: house tax was three pounds fifteen shillings; land tax 5l; window tax 15l 12s; poor rates 10l; lighting, watching and street rates 3l 9s 31/2d. The total cost for the year came to £87 16s 31/2d.

"Where there's no jantleman over these under-agents, as here, they do as they plase; and when they have set the land they get rasonable from the head landlords, to poor cratures at a rack-rent, that they can't live and pay the rent."
[Chapter 10, The Absentee, by Maria Edgeworth]

Rack-rent was a term that described an extortionate rent. In some cases, the annual rent might equal or exceed the value of the property. In her novels, Maria Edgeworth highlights the plight of Irish tenants, who would often be forced to provide manual labour in place of a rent they could no longer afford to pay.

A man who changed rental agreements after a tenant had moved into the house, in order to charge much higher rents, was known as a Rack-rent Landlord.

Apartments

"To be LET and entered on immediately, in a private family, ready furnished, for six or twelve months certain, a most desirable DRAWING ROOM APARTMENT, beautifully situated; together with other lodging rooms, a servants hall, and the use of the kitchens. For particulars apply at No. 2, Axford Buildings."
[Bath Chronicle and Weekly Gazette, pub. 4th June 1812]

If you did not need, or could not afford to rent a whole house, then it was also common for owners to let one or two floors of an occupied house. The owner would often occupy the ground floor and the top floor, while letting out the first floor or the first and second floors, and these would be called Apartments.

Although they were part of someone else's house, an apartment offered independent living, where you were looked after by your own servants, who cooked and cleaned for you.

Jane Austen herself lived in this kind of apartment in Queen's Square, during her family's stay in Bath, and she wrote to her sister upon her arrival:

"We are exceedingly pleased with the house; the rooms are quite as large as we expected. Mrs. Bromley is a fat woman in mourning, and a little black kitten runs about the staircase. Elizabeth has the apartment within the drawing-room; she wanted my mother to have it, but as there was no bed in the inner one, and the stairs are so much easier of ascent, or my mother so much stronger than in Paragon as not to regard the double flight, it is settled for us to be above, where we have two very nice-sized rooms, with dirty quilts and everything comfortable. I have the outward and larger apartment, as I ought to have; which is quite as large as our bedroom at home, and my mother's is not materially less."
[Letter from Jane Austen to her sister Cassandra, written from 13 Queen's Square, Bath, 17th May 1799]

13 Queen's Square, was a townhouse spread over five levels. The Austen's rented the first and second floors during their stay in 1799, which would have left the ground floor, basement and attic levels for the owner, Mrs Bromley.

She might have been drawing on this experience when she later described Mrs Bates' accommodation:

"The house belonged to people in business. Mrs. and Miss Bates occupied the drawing-room floor; and there, in the very moderate-sized apartment, which was every thing to them, the visitors were most cordially and even gratefully welcomed."
[Chapter 19, Emma by Jane Austen]

Single gentleman of position and wealth, who needed a base in town, might be fortunate enough to buy or rent an apartment at the Albany. This was the former home of the Viscount Melbourne, which in 1802 was converted into individual apartments. There were more than sixty apartments that were owned freehold and sometimes rented out by their owners. Trustees of Albany had to approve each prospective purchaser or tenant, and the person residing in the apartment could only be a bachelor.

Each apartment was all on one level, except for the cellar. One set of Albany chambers for sale in 1804 was described in this manner: "...two principal sitting rooms of admirable proportions, fitted up with very superior taste, and divided by handsome folding doors, an anti-room, a bed chamber, water closet, cellar and servant's apartment."

One of the most familiar residents of Albany was Lord Byron, who in 1814 rented Lord Althorp's apartments for £110 per year.

Lodging Rooms

"Her accommodations were limited to a noisy parlour, and a dark bedroom behind, with no possibility of moving from one to the other without assistance, which there was only one servant in the house to afford, and she never quitted the house but to be conveyed into the warm bath."
[Chapter 16, Persuasion by Jane Austen]

If you couldn't afford to rent a whole apartment, then you might instead rent one or two Rooms in a lodging house. Unlike an apartment, lodging rooms were not independent spaces, with their own cooking facilities. The landlady might instead offer meals (board) for an extra cost, or you could heat up simple meals yourself over the fireplace grate.

Some lodging houses were run like a modern-day "bed and breakfast", where you kept to yourself outside mealtime. In others, you would be living as part of the family and spending time with them.

In 1812, you could find board and lodging "in an airy situation, in the neighbourhood of Guildford Street" for 65 guineas a year. Another advertisement in 1815 offered "genteel and comfortable" board and lodging, in the vicinity of Hyde Park, to suit a Gentleman and his wife, or a lady and daughters, for 80 guineas a year.

Edited to add details of Rack-rent.
Edited to add a description of Mr Edgeworth's new library and garden.
Edited to add a picture of the enlarged library at Edgeworthtown House.

[Image: Halswell House by Augustino Aglio. Painted about 1830. Via Wikimedia Commons (Public Domain)]

[Image: Library at Edgeworthtown House dated 1888. Via Wikimedia Commons (Public Domain)]