Sash Windows in Birmingham’s Georgian and Victorian houses

The oldest surviving sash windows date back to the 1670s, with the design a recognised mainstay of Georgian and Victorian architecture.

Even today sash windows remain a key feature of such properties, both in leafy suburbs and more metropolitan areas. Here we take a look at two areas of Birmingham where the sash window retains prominence.

Amongst the second city’s more palatial suburbs, Edgbaston and Moseley both offer an eclectic range of redbrick Georgian townhouses and terraced properties that maintain many of their original features.

As with many of the tiered homes popularised in the early 1800s, sash windows are a prominent feature in these areas (commonly treated in white) and are used in varying styles and sizes. A brief walk around either area will demonstrate how popular sash windows remain, even in larger communal properties and grander private homes.

One such example is Perrott’s Folly in Edgbaston, a local landmark built in 1758 and rumoured to have inspired a young J.R.R Tolkien in his future literature, including the Lord of the Rings series.

The design of properties in these areas owes greatly to the ideal of balance and proportion popularised in the Georgian era. In the many parts of the city built with the architecture of the period, there is a sense of uniformity and spacing that is complimented by the linear characteristics of sash windows.

For this reason sash windows are a feature of these properties keenly preserved by home owners, both in the maintenance and restoration of original installations and the fitting of modern sash windows that are so sympathetic to the appearance and style of the era that they would look to be the originals.

If you have a period property that requires bespoke sash window systems to be crafted at the highest standard, please call us on 01905 841199 or email info@ruraltimberwindow.co.uk.