Roger Hunt on the care and repair of front doors

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Years ago I remember standing on the steps of 10 Downing Street, built in the late 17th century, and thinking how much history that famous front door had seen. With its solemn, glossy black face caught so often in the flare of camera lights, few doors are better known and, even with its lopsided ‘0’ in the number 10, it reflects perfectly the importance of the building it provides entry to.

Front doors are all about impact and status so they are often lavished with detail. They evolved from a simple construction of vertical planks fixed to horizontal timber ‘ledges’ into complicated joinery items with panels, frames, fanlights and hoods.

Early pointed doors gave way to arched doors that, in the 17th century, developed into the classical panelled door. A favourite form of overdoor canopy was a semi-circular hood supported on carved brackets. Humble buildings such as cottages retained the simple planked door that changed little in appearance over the centuries.

The Georgian door typically had six panels and often stood within an elaborate stone or wooden doorcase. Taking their name from their semi-circular fan shape, glazed fanlights began to appear in the 1720s to provide natural light for the hallway. Some fanlights are works of art in themselves with delicate glazing bars formed variously of wood, iron, lead, brass and cast iron. Large fanlights without glazing bars became common after the development of plate glass in the 1840s.

With the coming of the Victorian age, the doorcase disappeared and doors began to be mass-produced which resulted in a great diversity of styles. Four-panelled doors were very common and, from this period onwards, leaded and coloured glass increasingly began to be included in the upper half of the door and in panels or ‘side lights’ to either side.

Restoring original doors
The variety of door styles available in the 19th and early 20th centuries was brought home to me by Justin Miles-Booy, owner of Arc Reclamation near Petersfield in Hampshire. He generally stocks some 400 period front doors at any one time. The majority are pine, though he emphasised that the pine used for doors made before World War II is far superior to anything available today because it was very slow grown so is incredibly dense and hard-wearing.

When an old pine or hardwood door arrives at the Arc workshops it is stripped of its accumulated layers of paint. Justin explained that this reveals defects such as areas that have been patched or filled, as well as rot and woodworm. Arc Reclamation either sells doors in this raw state to customers or will undertake a full renovation including making a frame and supplying glass to meet the specific needs of the client.

Care and repair
An original front door is as valuable as a piece of antique furniture so it is well worth repairing. With a listed property, or one in a conservation area, consent may be required from the local planning department before changing its ‘character’. Where original glass exists keep it if possible, but for new doors building regulations do require toughened glass for safety.

The best time to work on a front door is in the summer. It may shrink and swell several millimetres with the seasons so think twice before trimming the edges during damp weather. Most doors can be repaired by a good joiner who will be able to cut out decayed or damaged areas and scarf in new timber using matching materials and techniques. Fanlights can be trickier because of their intricate nature, fragility and the variety of materials used.

If you are buying a new or reclaimed door consider its period and style. Check that it is not warped or cracked and that its proportions are right as doors are sometimes cut down to fit an opening. This can weaken a door, especially if the mortice and tenon joints have been damaged – something which may also happen when joints are thoughtlessly cut through to fit locks.

Where joints are loose they can be re-glued with an exterior grade PVA adhesive and the wedges that tighten them tapped back into place. External wooden doors are most likely to have deteriorated along their bottom edge due to the effects of damp and, where this has occurred, new timber can usually be used to replace the rotten part. If locks do need to be upgraded, try to reuse existing lock holes as it saves further damage to the door.

External doors should be repainted every three to five years; traditionally, only hardwood doors were left unpainted. Thorough decoration helps minimise moisture penetration and swelling so always take a door off its hinges to enable all edges to be properly primed and finished and remember other areas of bare timber such as within the letter plate opening.

Front doors are often a source of draughts. DIY stores stock a variety of solutions and brush strips installed along the bottom edge help considerably. Movable ‘sausage’ draught excluders made of fabric and filled with sand are another effective solution. Letter plates let in cold air so check that they are closing properly and cover the inside face with a wooden flap or heavy piece of cloth.

ABOVE (clockwise from left): A Gothic Revival door in south London; The putty on the front face of this door at Arc Reclamation was in poor condition so water seeped into the top of the lock rail and caused the timber to rot. The repair will involve new timber being inserted; A Georgian fanlight in Thaxted, Essex; Victorian doors on the Isle of Wight – the blue door retains more original features.

Word for word: A glossary of door-related terms
DOOR CASES AND HOODS These set off the door and consist of pillars, columns or brackets supporting flat projecting cornices or ornamental hoods sometimes with a shell moulding.
LETTER PLATES These were introduced with the coming of the penny post in 1840. From then on, the central or lock rail of doors was widened to accomodate them.
MORTISE AND TENON Traditional carpentry joint used to connect the components of a door where the tongue of the tenon slots into the mortise opening.
SCARF JOINT A method of joining two pieces of timber end to end.
TOUGHENED GLASS A modern-day safety requirement. In the case of old doors, it may be installed on the outside face of stained glass window panels to provide protection against damage and weather and stops the glass getting stressed if the door slams.

Visit Roger Hunt's website at huntwriter.com

WORDS ROGER HUNT PHOTOGRAPHS ROGER HUNT; ARC RECLAMATION
Featured in the November 2009 issue of Period Living