Regency

During the 18th century, the array of Palladian motifs found in the great houses of the Georgian era had filtered down to even the smallest of homes. But as with the earlier periods we have explored in this series, a new generation of young architects yearned for classicism beyond the confines of Palladio. Out of this sprang a plethora of styles, from austere neoclassism to ornamentation en masse, with all things ancient and foreign by famous architects like John Nash, Samuel Pepys Cockerell and James Wyatt.

Architectural expression was back but with an aura of grace and refinement, which would flourish under the flamboyant Prince of Wales, the future George IV – and with the expanding British empire near its peak, unsurprisingly colonial styles were on trend – from chinoiserie and Indian Mughal, to Egyptian antiquity.

While some come could consider the plethora of Regency schemes as extensions, or even part of, Georgian architecture, its vast range and mixture of flamboyant and reserved use of styles compared to those earlier in the 18th century, certainly warrants consideration independent of its