THE BIG SLEEP
The bedroom’s shi! from a public to private space
The bedroom is regarded by many as an intensely personal space in which to rest and relax and generally escape the pressures of the outside world. But this concept of the bedroom as a private sanctuary or refuge is relatively new; the room itself didn’t really exist for most people until the 1500s.
In medieval times, entire households would simply bed down together on sacks of hay in the space in which they lived and dined. The relative safety and warmth delivered by this communal arrangement more than made up for the lack of privacy. Only the very wealthiest could a !ord a bed, and the room in which it was housed was also used for socialising, so it remained very much a public space.
‘ The transition of this room from public to private space is a really interesting part of the history of the bedroom,’ says Deborah Sugg Ryan, Professor of Design History at the University of Portsmouth and consultant historian on the BBC series A House Through Time.
The heavy curtains surrounding the classic four-poster bed were only introduced in the early 16th century, she explains, adding that the bedchambers of Britain’s richest and most important people were a place for entertaining and carrying out business. ‘At night servants o"en slept in here too,’ she says. All of which meant the occupants needed a means of shu#ing out the wider world. ‘ The drapes around the bed o!ered privacy within the more public space, so it becomes a sort of room within a room.’ And privacy wasn’t the only bene$t: ‘ We also have to think about how houses were heated in the early modern period,’ she says, pointing out the fact the curtains around a bed would not only keep out prying eyes, but would also hold the draughts at bay in big unheated rooms.
Although such beds remained the preserve of the rich (becoming increasingly lavish to showcase the wealth and status of their owners), by the 16th century many ordinary family homes had a dedicated room for sleeping, though it was still a shared space with li#le privacy. Various public occasions would be held in the bedchamber, including births,
which were seen as social events, presided over by neighbours and local women.
It’s not until the 17th century that we encounter the forerunner of the modern bedroom in the French concept of the ‘ closet’ – a small, private room a!ached to the more public bedchamber – an idea that was soon adopted by the well-to- do in Britain. The idea of bedroom privacy soon "ltered down to the burgeoning middle classes. By the time of the Georgian urban housing boom, doors had become a feature of bedrooms and servants slept elsewhere.
Of course, even as bedrooms began to be seen as private places, wealth and class meant that huge di #erences prevailed in the room’s use. While rich Victorian industrialists were building bigger houses and incorporating bedrooms with more of an emphasis on privacy, this wasn’t the experience for everyone. ‘If you were from a working- class background, you o$en wouldn’t have a separate bedroom. Your bed may be in a bed nook in the room that you’re living in,’ explains Deborah. Back-to-backs and Victorian terraces would o$en see large families in one small home and several children sharing a bed.
The bedroom as we understand it today only really emerged in the 1930s, when the addition of armchairs and desks re%ected its gradual evolution into a place to read and relax in private, eventually becoming the versatile private space we take for granted today. In fact, bedrooms may now be at the point of another new chapter in their story, as Deborah points out: ‘ For many people, especially since the pandemic, bedrooms have also become working spaces. And we all have mobile phones, so our bedrooms are networked and no longer that retreat from the outside world. We’re at this interesting moment when the bedroom is changing again, and I think that’s fascinating.’