The small coastal cottage or large seafront terrace painted in a palette of pastel (or sometimes not so pastel) shades is an increasingly common sight in British holiday resorts and harbours. On a sunny summer’s day they’re a colourful seaside honeypot for tourists.
When these historic dwellings were built their exterior appearance would have been that of natural stone, possibly with a later render or whitewash coating to improve its weatherproofing. The white seaside cottage became a ubiquitous feature of our coastline, but at some unknown point a trend started to paint them in colours other than white.
Exactly why and when this trend started is a bit of a mystery, but it’s likely to date back to Georgian or Victorian times, or possibly even earlier, when a white ‘lime wash’ was applied to exterior walls of new houses. This improved weatherproofing in exposed sites and also hid the variable quality of the stonework beneath. The white wall would also reflect the sun’s rays and was said to keep the temperature inside in summer a little cooler.
Then someone, somewhere
