Rules · Doors & windows · Materials
Glaze the sash windows in panes of equal size, three across: six over six on the ordinary storeys, six over nine on the tall windows of the principal floor, and three over three in the low windows of the attic.
Crown glass could not be made in large sheets, so the panes were small and the glazing bars many; as the bars grew thinner through the century, the window grew lighter. Panes became larger only with sheet glass after 1830.
Make the architrave round a door or window as wide as a sixth part of the opening’s breadth, and dress the openings of the principal floor more richly than those of the storeys above and below, with a frieze and cornice, and on the grandest a pediment.
architrave = ⅙ × width of the light
Over a long row of windows on the principal floor, set triangular and segmental pediments in turn, so that the row is read in pairs and does not run on monotonously.
Break the architrave of a door or window with blocks of plain stone laid across it, alternately larger and smaller, and set a keystone in the middle of the head.
Rusticate the lowest storey or the basement, its stones marked by deep joints, as the plainest and strongest part of the building; keep the dressed stone, the orders and the ornament for the storeys above.
Bind the corners of a wall with dressed stones laid alternately long and short on each face, so that they bond into both walls and mark the angle of the building.
Over a window in a brick front, turn a flat arch of soft red bricks rubbed and cut (gauged) to radiate from a centre below, laid with the finest joints, and give it a keystone of stone where the front is dressed in stone.
Cite this page Chris Paton, “Sash windows of small panes”, The Textbook of Architecture, https://textbookofarchitecture.com/rule/georgian-sash. Text, drawings and models licensed under CC BY-NC 4.0.