TRADITIONAL DOORS

The front door is considered the 'eye' of the house. Though it has also been said of windows.

Change door detail and the whole look of a house will change. The change is visually most damaging when an original door is removed on a traditional house. The door was always recognised as a key element in the house frontage and was therefore designed to fully integrate with the whole facade, having clear links to other key elements such as windows.

The traditional door is usually an outstanding piece of workmanship, of high design integrity, and usually made of high quality seasoned pine (the mania for door stripping is perhaps testament to this wood quality). The upper part of the traditional door often has fine leaded glass, often stained and occluded. Doors made today rarely achieve the combination of design, workmanship and quality of materials found in the traditional door. This quality was maintained right up to the second world war. These doors are being seen increasingly as 'antiques' in their own right and are now becoming sought after. See BBC Antiques Roadshow feature of 18/12/3000 (www.bbc.co.uk/antiques/roadshow).

Threats to traditional doors are numerous. Previous practice has usually involved upper glazing replacement or in the removal of lower wooden panels to introduce further glazing. Much of this was done to presumably increase light. Today, wholesale door replacement seems vogue. Throughout the Eighties it has become a familiar to see perfectly sound traditional doors hanging out of skips, a sad end to these fine pieces of house history. Door replacement is perhaps the most unnecessary change being made to the traditional house, since they are rarely subject to the same harsh weather that windows or roofs have to endure. They are therefore much less prone to weathering or rot. The main reasons for removal must be to create more light or to reduce draughts. It is hard to believe that people would remove them for aesthetic reasons. Reducing draughts is achieved by cheap and effective use of readily available draught strip. Changing a door to increase light however, is a contentious issue, since the amount of light increase achieved by door alteration, is often minimal.

The massive marketing of new doors throughout the eighties, mainly by DIY superstores has fuelled a replacement mania. The most popular choice of new door seems to be the ubiquitous 'Kentucky' design. This door is usually made in poor quality hardwood often from dubious sources. The door will then receive the fashionable 'treacle' coloured varnish finish. This door is really a very crude imitation of the classic Georgian door with the normally separate fanlight incorporated into the door itself!

The traditional doors displayed are just a small cross section, photographed within a small locality within Birmingham. These doors are under continual threat, please study and appreciate them and help in the cause for their preservation.