Have you noticed the shutters on houses in St Leonard’s?
A few years ago, there was a minor controversy in the world
of children’s dictionaries. Words about
the natural world like acorn, ash, heron, kingfisher and wren were missing from
these reference books, and their place was taken with computer terms. What, people asked, did this say about the
vocabulary of primary-school children?
It made me wonder about the theme of this article, so I checked.
Older houses in St Leonard’s may have indoor shutters,
either instead of curtains, or to supplement them as covering for the windows. For those older houses, they are part of the
heritage, and may be covered by the rules of conservation areas. Dictionaries for younger people don’t always
include the concept of a shutter as part of a house’s furniture; more important
is the word “shut” meaning to close a computer program! Another meaning of shutter, as part of a
camera, is likely to disappear with smartphones taking good quality pictures.
It is actually quite hard to see whether houses have indoor
shutters without intruding on people’s privacy, so I won’t go into much
detail. Suffice to say that if an Exeter
house was built before about 1850, then it is quite likely to have a set of shutters
built into the window frames. Depending
on the exact style, these will fold out from the thickness of the wall, cover
the windows, and be secured by a bar on the inside. There may even be a lock on that bar, at the
end, to prevent intruders using a jemmy (also not in the children’s dictionary)
to raise the bar and break in. Such
shutters were not especially draught-proof, but they did keep some warmth in
the house and gave privacy.
Why 1850? There are
two reasons. First, the coming of the
railways in the middle of the 19th century brought with it the
latest architectural ideas from London (and beyond) much more rapidly than had
been the case a generation or more earlier.
Second, mass-produced woven fabrics had become much cheaper and widely
available, so that houses could be designed to have curtains instead of
shutters.
So, many of the houses in the older parts of St Leonard’s, including
Colleton Crescent, Friars Walk, Magdalen Road, Wonford Road, St Leonard’s Road
and Lyndhurst Road have shutters and many of these homes still use them. Have a look, discreetly, next time you are
walking after dark on one of these roads.
There is something a little romantic about closing a shutter across the
window, even though they need more maintenance than curtains.
A friend lived in Bristol when it was blitzed; she told me
that after one night of bombing, her father opened the shutters and all the
glass from the window cascaded in. The
explosions had shattered the panes, but the shutters had protected the rooms. I imagine this happened here as well in our
blitz.
In a few places you will find continental shutters on the
outside of houses. These are a little
superfluous in the Devon climate, since they are there to keep the glare of the
sun away from the interior. Nonetheless,
they make an attractive feature on the outside of the house. And
because they do so, sometimes they are there simply as decoration and can’t be
closed across the windows.
In the last issue of the News, I challenged you to find a
street-light with a hinge; there is one in the footway between Penleonard Close
and Magdalen Road, and several by the cycle track at Duck’s Marsh; did you find
any others?
(Published in the May-June 2016 issue of Neighbourhood News)
Keywords: St Leonards, Exeter, history, geography, beauty