The kitchen was not a place where design details were considered important to a home owner, but to the housewife, the cook, and the chef de cuisine of a large hotel, its layout and equipment were of the utmost importance. In the 1907 edition of Mrs. Beeton’s Household Management, noted that the requisites of a good kitchen were:
1. Convenience of distribution in its parts, with largeness of dimension
2. Excellence of light, height, and ventilation
3. Easy of access, without passing through the house
4. Walls and location so arranged that the odours of cookery cannot spread about the house (the Victorians and Edwardians had a phobia of kitchen smells!)
5. Plenty of fuel and water, which, with the scullery, pantry and storeroom, should be so near the kitchen as to offer the smallest possible trouble in reaching them.

The issue of sanitation was also one of importance, and it was advised that walls be made of white glazed tiles and floor coverings of oil-cloth and linoleum. However, this varied depending on the architecture of area–for example, flags of smooth stone were cemented together to form a smooth floor in the north of England, the kitchen floor usually consisted of unglazed red tiles in the Midlands, and on the east coast, floors were frequently laid with red or yellow bricks. Kitchen fixtures were simple and utilitarian, and a well-constructed sink of either wood lined with zinc, stoneware, or lined with cemented tiles were recommended. A large work table was the most important article of furniture, and the drawers at each end contained the cook’s tools, such as knives and spoons, and small utensils and implements in constant use. The last, but by far the most important of the kitchen requisites was the kitchen range, or kitchener, which was used for cooking, heating water, and so on. The kitchen range was a range, either open or close, that was fixed in its place with brickwork, the kitchener was a range entirely independent of its surroundings and stood on four legs, and the gas range or stove was similar to the kitchener, but was, of course, run with gas. Oil stoves and cooking by electricity were also popular options, though the latter was incredibly expensive to run.

A kitchen in tip-top form always contained a full array of utensils. There were the stewpans and saucepans of tin, copper, brass, enameled iron, and wrought steel; the boiler for boiling large joints, hams, and puddings; the digester, a small stock pot; the stock pot itself; the braising pan; the double or milk saucepan (a small bain-marie); steamers; fish-kettles; fish fryers; the frying pan; the bain-marie; the dripping pan; the gridion; and the dutch oven. Other must-have utentils were weights and scales, a mincing machine, steak tongs, knives, a colander, a pestle and mortar, a chopping board and bowl, preserving pans, sieves, coffee and pepper mills, baking dishes, tartlet pans, vegetable cutters, an egg poacher, freezing machines, water filters, refrigerators, etc.

From Party-giving on Every Scale:

To commence with one of these minor expenses, but an all-important one in its way, the floor of a ball-room. The drawing-rooms or drawing-room of a house is, in town, the room usually converted into a ball-room, save in those stately mansions which boast of an especial ball-room or picture-gallery of noble proportions, wherein these festive entertainments are held; in these handsome apartments the flooring is kept in a highly-polished condition, and only requires a little extra polishing on the occasion of a ball being given. The flooring of many a London drawingroom now also presents a polished surface, parquet flooring being so much in vogue; but an ordinary flooring, even in those houses that are of recent build requires to be thoroughly put in order by the aid of a carpenter, all the unevennesses of the surface to be planed, and the boards prepared for polishing. The cost of this is simply the workman’s time, which may be either three days or three hours according to the size of the rooms and the condition of the boards.

…With regard to the number of seats placed in a ball-room, if the room is a very spacious one, it is usual to place settees or rout-seats around the walls and in the recesses of the windows and in other available spots.
When the accommodation of a house admits of it it is usual to fit up one smaller room as a drawingroom; but when dancing takes place in both drawing-rooms, and there is no third room at command, then an extra number of rout-seats are provided in the ball-room, on the landings, and in the tea-room.

For the wealthy and socially aspiring Edwardians, life in London, according to Alastair Service, was often hard work to get idle pleasure. During the season, society descended upon London for three months of socializing, networking, sport, pleasure, and otherwise strengthening ties between families and acquaintances. With so many aristocrats and moneyed people taking part in the social whirl, town houses were in big demand whether they could be built, purchased, or let for the duration of the season.

A few peers were in possession of large houses (Devonshire House, Spencer House, Stafford House, Londonderry House, etc), but most of society made do with elegant town mansions on or around the Grosvenor Estate in Mayfair in neo-Georgian, neo-Flemish, or neo-Elizabethan styles designed by such architects as Sir Ernest George, H. O. Cresswell. Detmar Blow and Fernand Billery, Eustace Balfour and Thackeray Turner, Sir Robert Edis, and various members of the Wimperis family. Though the return of the Liberal Government in 1906 slowed the flurry of building, many of the small Georgian houses in the area were demolished and rebuilt with Edwardian splendor between the years 1911 and 1913.

The town mansion profiled in this piece was designed by Ernest George and his partner Alfred Yeates on Charles Street, off Berkeley Square. Based on the floor plan, the house was constructed mostly for reception purposes, with the obviously less important bedrooms for the owners and maids’ reached by a secondary staircase (not shown) to the second and third floors. The house boasted up-to-date fixtures, with electricity throughout the entire house, a serving lift, and speaking tubes for the owners to speak with the servants.