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Practical Advice - Leisure

Leisure includes travel and entertaining involving Victorian architecture.

Creating your Victorian style living room  to enjoy

Creating your Victorian style living room to enjoy

The very term living room itself would imply different usages for the room in different eras. In the Victorian period, a living room would have been a room dedicated to receiving guests and in smaller houses this would be known as the front room. In larger…

16 Feb 2016

The very term living room itself would imply different usages for the room in different eras. In a Victorian house, the living room would have been a room dedicated to receiving guests and in smaller houses this would be known as the front room. In larger houses the living room might be an informal private area where the family relaxed. If we define the term living room as a general space where one can relax and socialise, it should…

Organising a Victorian-Themed Fancy Dress Party

Organising a Victorian-Themed Fancy Dress Party

One of the highlights of themed parties is in the dressing-up and the costumes. For a truly authentic Victorian-themed party, encourage your guests to dress in Victorian attire.

22 Jan 2013

The Victorian era was a highly influential period of romance, elegance, grandeur and chivalry. For those of us lucky enough to live in a Victorian period home, restoring the property back to its original glory is a rewarding and enjoyable task. As well as making the very most of your home's best features, this is also an excellent way to add value to your house. And one very popular way to show off your fully restored, elegant and grand…

Tags: costumes
How To Make Victorian Sugarplums

How To Make Victorian Sugarplums

How to make Victorian Sugar Plums, the dried, sugared fruits often hung from Christmas trees as treats to be given to out to children and as gifts.

22 Jan 2013

The Victorians hung sweets and dried, sugared fruits from their Christmas trees as treats to be given to out to children and as gifts. They would make pretty coloured boxes or cones of paper to hang them in.

How To Make Victorian Wassail Punch

How To Make Victorian Wassail Punch

This warming Christmas drink was originally part of pagan ritual to ensure good health and a plentiful apple harvest, and would have been drunk in midwinter in the apple orchards.

22 Jan 2013

How To Make Victorian Wassail Punch This warming Christmas drink was originally part of pagan ritual to ensure good health and a plentiful apple harvest, and would have been drunk in midwinter in the apple orchards. By Victorian times, the drink was still one to wish good health but was served to carol singers who were invited into the house to warm themselves with a drink from the wassail bowl. Here's how to make your own Victorian…

The Victorian Dinner Party

The Victorian Dinner Party

Victorian dinner parties were opportunities to show one’s affluence and style and sometimes a hostess would choose a theme.

22 Jan 2013

The Victorian dinner party was a grand, flamboyant and opulent affair.  Picture if you will an endless procession of soups, fish, meats, salads, vegetables, puddings, ices, meringues and pastries served on exquisitely decorated china and serving dishes and a dining table heavily decorated with flowers, ferns and stands of fruit and decorated cakes.  By the mid 1870’s it was not uncommon for up to 12 or 13 courses to be served by the…