The statutes that followed the Great Fire’s rebuilding acts: they forbade the wooden eaves cornices along which fire ran from house to house, required a parapet in front of the roof, set the window frames back from the face of the brick, and in 1774 sorted London’s houses into rates, each with its own thickness of wall.
The Act of 1707 required the front and party walls to be carried up above the garret floor as parapets, and forbade cornices of timber at the eaves. The Act of 1709 required the window frames to be set back four inches from the face of the wall, so that the wooden frames were sheltered in the brick reveals.
The Building Act of 1774 divided houses into four rates by their size and value, fixed the walls of each, and required the sash boxes to be hidden behind the reveals. Together the Acts made the plain, flat, parapeted brick front of the Georgian terrace, which builders outside London copied without being bound to.
The book, part by part
I Parapets, reveals and rates
The parapet in place of the timber cornice; the window frames set back; the rates of houses.
Rules: The London Building Acts