Period character guide: Staircases

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Ominous powdery deposits were the first warning that woodworm were busily munching their way through the staircase of the Victorian house I had just bought. Investigations revealed the infestation was serious but, once I had cured the damp conditions in which they were thriving, I was able to strengthen the staircase’s underside with new timber and repair the damaged treads.

Important early buildings had masonry staircases built either internally or externally. Others were of an open tread design using heavy timber planks. As the staircase developed, construction became more complex with ‘dog legs’ and landings. Most had only basic decoration and were hidden away, although ornamental carved staircases were built in prominent positions in some grand Elizabethan and Jacobean houses.

By the beginning of the Georgian period, the staircase was often the dominant feature of the entrance hall. Barley-twist decoration was popular and, sometimes, carved brackets were incorporated on the side below each tread. Polished mahogany handrails appeared in the 1720s while the inferior wood of the balusters would be painted. In some grand town houses timber handrails were used in conjunction with wrought- or cast-iron balusters and stone staircases.

Softwood was employed extensively by the speculative builders of the Victorian period and the newels, handrails and balusters took on a heavy, bulbous appearance. With the coming of mass production standard stair parts began to be widely available.

By Edwardian times staircases were more elegant. Painted fretwork or plain, square balusters and newel posts were common while polished oak was used in better work.

Staircase traditions
The way a wooden staircase is framed has changed little. In the Oxford workshops of Symm, a specialist builder founded in 1815, the first stage in the process is to prepare survey drawings from measurements taken on site. These are then developed into full size working drawings to form the templates from which all the parts are made.

Aidan Mortimer, Symm’s chief executive, explained that a staircase must be made to exact tolerances in order to fit precisely the space it will finally occupy. Machines are used to ease the process but Symm’s joiners still do much by hand.

The first stage in making a closed-string staircase is to cut the housings for the treads and risers in the strings. Typically the strings are then jointed into newel posts at the foot and head of the flight. The inner string will usually be fixed to the wall along which it runs.

Using a rubber mallet, the treads and risers are tapped into the grooves cut in the string and, once in place, are wedged and glued from below. According to Aidan part of the skill of the staircase maker is to ensure all these elements are put together in the correct order – a task which becomes even more complicated where winders, the shaped treads used where the staircase turns a corner, are involved.

On a curved staircase, making the handrail requires particular skill as it has exactly to echo the shape of the string beneath. To achieve a curve, short sections of timber are used and the joiner scribes the shape onto these with a pencil using the string as a template. The sections are jointed together and Aidan emphasised that, as with all the elements in the process, matching the colour and grain of the timber is crucial.

Into both the handrail and the string are fitted the balusters. If these are round they will be turned on a lathe but often their ends are square to enable them to fit snugly into pockets cut into the string and handrail.

Once the complicated job of assembling the staircase on site has been done it is often necessary to clad the underside or soffit. Sometimes this is timber panelling but more typically it is plastered, traditionally onto wooden laths.

Making repairs
Problems with staircases take various forms. It might be that the stairs simply creak or are worn or there may be more serious structural problems. As I discovered it is worth taking note of signs of beetle infestation or rot as they can seriously weaken timber if left unchecked.

Expert help should always be sought where major repairs are necessary as work to staircases can be complex. Those which are made of metal or stone are generally likely to need the expertise of a blacksmith or stonemason.

Screws can often be used to tighten treads and risers from above to stop them creaking but repairs are invariably easiest where there is access for the individual from below – although it is important not to cause unnecessary damage to a soffit of panelling or plasterwork.

Where repairs are possible from underneath, check the blocks holding the treads and risers together and replace or re-glue them where necessary. If the joints between the stairs and string have become loose, glue and drive new wedges into the joint. With my staircase I cut off the damaged nosings on the front edge of some of the treads and replaced them with new lengths of suitably shaped timber screwed and glued into place.

Balusters are particularly vulnerable to being split or broken. Often they can be glued and temporarily ‘splinted’, sometimes reinforced with a dowel drilled into the end of the two halves. Timber yards generally offer a range of staircase parts and salvage yards can prove a valuable source but finding an exact match may be difficult so it might be necessary to have a copy made by a wood turner.

Reinstating a staircase
When considering a new staircase think about the style and what is right for the period of your home. The degree of ornamentation would have depended on its position within the house and the most elaborate staircases were in entrance halls while in less public areas they became simpler.

Building regulations govern new staircases and, amongst other things, take into account the steepness, the rise and going (depth of the tread from front to back), and the headroom so careful consideration needs to be given to how a staircase will be integrated into an old building.

Word for word: A staircase glossary

• BALUSTERS OR SPINDLES Upright posts between the handrail and floor.
• CARRIAGE PIECE An intermediary string adding support under the centre of a staircase.
• NEWEL Post supporting the string and handrail at the end of each flight and, in turn, transferring the weight of the staircase to the floor.
• NOSING Curved front part of a tread projecting over the riser.
• STRING Sloping timber board forming the side of a staircase. ‘Closed’ strings have parallel edges with the treads and risers jointed into them; ‘open’ strings are cut, on the upper side, in the shape of the steps.

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WORDS ROGER HUNT PHOTOGRAPHS SYMM; ROGER HUNT; BISCA
Featured in the February 2010 issue of Period Living

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