Victorians rejected the rigid rules of Georgian design in favour of new fashions and rambling, even organic detailing. Whereas the ‘old money’ stayed loyal to their neo-classical homes, the newly emerging middle classes opted for neo-Gothic styles that reminded them of an imagined pre-industrial golden age.

Vulgar, out-of-proportion, and incongruous they may have been, but Victorian house designs swept the nation, and made a lasting impact on our townscapes. Pastiche was king, and your average suburban villa may have been home to Chinese, classical, neo-gothic or Arts & Crafts influences all in the same home. Interior design for the home was booming, the middle classes were growing in number, and factories were churning out mass-produced machine-made designs that many could afford for the first time.

Llandudno is famous for the grace of its hundreds of Victorian buildings, which provide a picturesque backdrop to the natural beauty of the area. However, it’s not easy to find a house in its original Victorian state so we were lucky to be able to visit Osborne House, named after Victoria’s own Isle of Wight home. Careful restoration over a number of years have returned this house to the palatial style intended by its architect.

The later nineteenth century stone facing of the exterior is nothing to write home about, but inside the house (now a luxury hotel) is dripping with gilded woodwork, crystal chandeliers and expensive furnishings. It looks and feels like the Victorian gentry have just left the room.

Victorian reception rooms were all about impressing your guests, and visitors to Osborne House can’t fail to comment on the luxury atmosphere that has been created. The walls are wonderfully dark, the windows are obscured by lace, and the rooms are over-full of furniture, just like they would have been in the nineteenth century. Foreign curios fill glass cabinets and ‘ancestral’ oil paintings hang on the walls. The rooms are heavy, opulent and deliciously excessive. Here we have palatial luxury scaled down for the middle classes, which was just what Victorian design was all about.