XXXVII. Semi-Detached Houses

The semi-detached house might, perhaps, be better described as semi-attached, for it is its attachment which forces itself upon its tenant as its salient characteristic. It generally represents a hesitating compromise which is fatal to success, and secures for itself neither the advantages of the terrace nor the detached house, while it seems to combine the drawbacks of each. It represents a builder’s expedient for making the most of his frontage, and inasmuch as it ranks higher in the conventional scale of excellence than the terrace house and commands a higher rent, it is often to be seen on the outskirts of the modern town, where it has been built for those who cherish the illusion that a semi-detached house is necessarily superior to one in a terrace.

This type of house generally consists of the ordinary terrace plan with the addition of a narrow passage at the side by which the butcher’s boy is enabled to reach the back premises. The rational planning of a house on such a frontage would not sacrifice three feet of it for the use of the butcher’s boy, but would rather, in building a continuous terrace, give this space to the principal rooms, and would then rather consider the possibility of bringing the back premises to the butcher’s boy instead of sacrificing space and spoiling the garden by placing the kitchens at the back of the house regardless of aspect, and thus involving difficulties in their approach from the front. Here one is met by the same traditional follies which have been alluded to in the case of the terrace house, and comfort and convenience are alike cheerfully sacrificed to a convention which decrees that the kitchens must be placed at the back.

If there is any rational excuse for the semi-detached house it is that the unattached side should be utilised for light, but in the class of houses which gain their title with the least expenditure of frontage this excuse cannot be urged. But there is a secondary class of semi-detached houses with more ample frontages, which seem to have all but realised the dream of complete detachment, and it is this type which has some degree of reason for its existence. In such houses light can be obtained from three sides, although this is not in all plans essential or desirable. On the other hand, the lack of privacy which is inevitable in the open parts of the garden of the terrace house is equally felt in the semi-detached one, while for those who appreciate the isolation of the detached house the enforced attachment to one other establishment is more felt than if they were merely one in a row. The houses represent a series of families arranged tete-a-tete, and neighbours can hardly be ignored as in the terrace. Under these circumstances it is doubtful whether the slight reduction in the cost of the houses caused by the common wall between them is sufficient compensation for these disadvantages.

From the artistic point ot view the semi-detached house presents the advantage of an extended frontage which enables the designer to gain that long, low proportion which is specially desirable in country buildings, and this may be noted in the examples of semi-detached houses illustrated. But while special conditions of site and demands of occupants may make the semi-detached house suitable in exceptional cases, -as a rule it is better to avoid the compromise it affords and to build either terraces or detached houses.