The Gothic Revival style, and all it symbolized, became known and used around the world – especially in English speaking countries. Churches were a natural fit in the style, but through the mid 19^th century many houses were built in the style as well. Such homes were supposed to convey to its owners “strong aspirations to something higher than social pleasures” according to an architectural book of the period. (Other house designs of the period apparently allowed more social leeway for their residents!)

A grand English House in the Gothic Revival style: Tyntesfield House, designed by architect John Norton in 1863. Near Wraxall, North Somerset, England. Gothic style windows, trefoil decoration and a spiky, picturesque roofline are features of the style in grand homes
Now owned by the National Trust, and open to the public.

In North America, homes in the style were usually much more modest, and built using materials that were indigenous to the area: Gothic Revival homes were built in stone, brick, and wood. They used a similar plan: usually there was a rectangular floor plan, with a central gable and a centred front door. An ordered interior plan followed, with a central staircase.  On the exterior were wide, lacy bargeboards, often in scrolled motifs or using gothic motifs of trefoils or quatrefoils. The houses often had a front porch, and windows in a pointed gothic style.

Designs for Gothic Revival barge boards – 1850

Detail: An 1863 house with a gothic window in the gable and cut out ‘quatrefoils’ in the bargeboards

Wentworth Villa – built 1863 in Victoria, B.C. Essentially intact. A wooden railing around the front porch roof was lost c1905, and the porch posts were replaced with turned posts c1890. This is a typical wood Gothic-Revival home in North America.