ABSTRACT
Everyone understands that venerable historic houses, the Elizabethan and Georgian mansions which are the staple of National Trust visits, were built before the days of electric lighting, mains water and internal toilets, still less central heating. It is more of a surprise to realise that a significant proportion of the nation’s domestic housing stock was also built without such services, and it wasn’t even until the interwar housing boom of the 1920s and 1930s that electrical wiring was routinely installed in new housing. As services became more widely available and homeowners began to demand their installation, the existing housing stock has continually adapted to new demands. The same process continues in the twenty-first century with an ever wider range of expectations from homeowners, most of whom now consider a fast internet service, for example, to be essential.
