Okay,  not death.  But let’s talk about taxes since most of us  in the U.S. are getting pretty near the deadline for submitting our annual tax returns.

While we’re never happy about paying taxes, I thought it might be a good time to think about the taxes we’re not paying that our heroes and heroines probably faced during the Regency.

One of the most widely known taxes during our period was the window tax. The window tax was introduced in 1691  and lasted until 1851.  That’s a lot of windows.   The tax was imposed upon every inhabited dwelling house in England (and Wales),  except cottages. That is,  houses not paying to church and poor rates in a parish.  By 1792, the rates ran from 6 shillings and 6 pence for houses with six windows or less to houses with 180 windows or more for which the charge was 93 pounds 2 shillings and 6 pence, with 3 shillings charged for every window over that number.  As you might imagine, this led to a lot of bricked-up windows.

Another interesting tax – and one we don’t have to worry about – is the tax on hair powder, introduced in 1795.  After May 5 of that year, very person in Great Britain using hair-powder was required to enter his name at one of the stamp offices and to take out an annual certificate which proved he had paid the tax of one guinea (One pound plus one shilling).  exemptions to the tax included the royal family and their servants; clergymen with an income under £100 a year, officers in the navy under the rank of commander, subalterns, non-commissioned officers, and privates in the army, artillery, militia, marines, engineers, and fencibles.  Exemptions were also made for families with large number of ladies. A father with two or more unmarried daughters could obtain a certificate for any numbers of hair-powder users in his household, provided he paid for the use of the powder by two people.  The government hoped that the tax would raise a revenue of £200,000 per year.  Instead, people stopped powdering their hair and, in the first year, it raised only £210.136.

The tax on “establishments of horses ” was introduced in 1784. It exempted, at first, horses used for agricultural purposes and was imposed only upon  “pleasure horses kept for amusement.” For every horse kept and used “for the saddle” or for “driving in a carriage” (which again, another taxable item) a tax of 10 shillings per year was levied.   1805 the taxation had been increased considerably. For one horse kept for pleasure the tax imposed was 2 pounds 17 shillings and 6 pence. For two horses, 4 pounds,14 shillings and 6 pence (that is 9 pounds 9 shillings for two), and so on along a sliding scale to an establishment of 20 or more horses where a tax of 6 pounds and 12 shillings was charged for every saddle or carriage horse.  The result of this was not that people stopped keeping pleasure horses but that, frequently, they rode horses meant for agricultural purposes.  See, for example, Mrs. Bennet co-opting Mr. Bennet’s farm horse to send Jane to Netherfield in the rain in Pride & Prejudice.

In 1777,  an annual tax of a guinea per man was imposed on male servants.  According to Pamela Horne in The Complete Servant, “Although originally intended to help finance the war of American Independence, it was retained in modified form until 1937. In addition between 1795 and 1869 a tax on hair powder was levied and this, too, added to the cost of employing footmen and coachmen in full regalia.”

These are just a sample of the taxes in existence during our period.  You might also like to investigate the tax on the home consumption of pepper. Or how about raisins?  Or the tax levied from 1784 to 1811 on men’s hats.  Pitt the Younger seemed to be the driving force behind many of the more interesting taxes.

Don’t we all eventually end up in an English country house?  Today, I’m continuing the tour of my library with a look at some of the books I use when I’m writing about a country house – or just looking for a little escapist eye candy.  These books all touch on the physical layout, structure and design of the house.  What goes on in and around the house is a topic for another day.

Country Houses from the Air

Let’s start with an overview.  Adrian Tinnswood’s Country Houses from the Air is just what it says.  Not relegated to a single era, this book still gives an excellent picture of the English country house within its environs.  Aerial photography and early architectural plans and prospects  combine to provide a look at the origins and current state of the houses under discussion.  The text provides some solid historical background and picks out notable features of the houses.

The English Country House in Perspective

While we’re airborne, let’s take a look at Gervase Jackson-Stops’s The English Country House in Perspective.  I love this book  It takes 12 country houses, provides a brief history and description, includes architectural layout of each house, some drawings or photos of the exterior and then – the payoff in this book, in my opinion – a cutaway view of the house showing the location and layout of various rooms in three-dimensional detail.  It makes it so much easier to move characters around the interior of one of these houses and to imagine the interactions taking place inside.

The Pattern of English Building

Before we go inside, however, let’s look at the exterior of the buildings.  In The Pattern of English Building, Alec Clifton-Taylor has written a detailed treatise on the construction materials used in various parts of England.  He links the geology of the country to the building in its various locations.  There is little in the book on the use of materials in the interior, but we can find that information elsewhere.  This book identifies the stone and other materials available in each area and includes a geological map showing the type of rock prevalent in each area.  This illustrates why it makes sense to have most of Bath built of that glorious Oolitic limestone that captures the afternoon light so beautifully, but also discusses how Bath stone was also among the first quarried stone to be shipped to other parts of the country.  This is a detailed and well-documented book with lots of photographs that are unfortunately in black and white in my paperback edition.

The Regency Country House

I have several books on country house interiors, but for this post have picked the sumptuously illustrated The Regency Country House   From the Archives of Country Life by John Martin Robinson.  This is the best kind of coffee table book, full of photographs of interiors and categorized into “The Palaces, The Nobelman’s House, and The Gentleman’s House.”  It includes photos of interiors, from grand stairways to tucked-away drawing room alcoves.  The furnishings in these photographs are not all of our period, but the book is worth looking at for a sense of the rooms.

Design & The Decorative Arts – Georgian Britain 1714-1837

There are a lot of books on the interior design of the period.  One of the most exhaustive is Regency Design 1790-1840 by John Morley.  This book covers gardens. buildings, interior decoration, and furniture and weighs a ton.  It discusses the impetus behind changing fashion and contains period illustrations of each of the various elements on which it focuses.

If you want something a little more focused,  you might like Design & The Decorative Arts Georgian Britain 1714-1837 by Michael Snodin and John Styles.  Although this is book surveys a longer period, it includes many illustrations of fashion leaders, decorative arts. and fashionable living.

I find picking up any one of these books inspiring and invigorating.  There’s no telling where your next idea is going to come from.  And if inspiration is not quick in coming, these books are good places to spend a few secluded hours just enjoying the atmosphere.