Page:An Encyclopædia of Cottage, Farm, and Villa Architecture and Furniture.djvu/130

 lOG COTTAGE, FARM, AND VILLA ARCHITECTURE, ground plan is by no means so. For what purpose are so many breaks and angles made, when a plain square, as in fig. 197, would have given the same accommodation, with increased dimensions, and at less expense ? The answer from the designer will probably be that the breaks are made to produce shade and variety in the elevation, as well as to mark the subordinate parts of the building, in order that an excuse may appear for their being executed in a cheaper manner than the rest. With respect to the first reason, we allow that some perpendicular shadows are by these means obtained ; but no shadows whatever will, in our eyes, justify so direct a deviation from the principle of utility. Here are no fewer than five apartments or appendages diminished in size for the sake of getting four breaks and four perpendicular shadows. Surely this will not bear the test of reason. But it may be said by the author of this Design, that the breaks are made to show that what is included in them are appendages or offices, and that they afford a reason why these appendages or offices are placed under lean-to roofs, and have smaller windows, and thinner and lower walls, than those of the main body of the house. Here we admit the architect has reason on his side ; for economy in building a cottage must ever be an important object, and indeed seems implied in the very name. The question, therefore, between the designer and us is, whether the superior simplicity and dignity of the exterior elevation that will be pro- duced by avoiding the breaks, and having the walls and roof of the offices of the same height and character as the main body of the building, will not compensate for the ad- ditional expense incurred ? We think it will ; for nothing, in our eyes, adds more to the dignity of a house, than a general simplicity of form, communicating grandeur to it as a whole, and giving an elevated character to its 197 appendages. By comparing the ground rn plan in Design XXIX. with fig. 197, the superior degree of simplicity of the latter figure, one would think alone sufficient to give it the preference over the other. 222. Improvement. A very suitable parapet for the terrace of this cottage might be formed by placing mignionette troughs of Austin's artificial stone, or of Peake's Staffordshire ware, such as fig. 198, on the top of a four-inch brick wall, formed of open or pigeon-hole brick-work, and car- ried to the height of eighteen or twenty inches. At the corner of this wall, solid square piers might be built, covered with plaster, and panelled like the pilasters at the end of the house, and these might be terminated by square mignionette boxes, fig. 199. This done, and corresponding terminations given to the chimneys, the design may then 198 be considered as tolerably complete. The mignionette boxes for mere admirers of flowers and lovers of sweet smells, may be filled with earth, and sown or planted with mignionette ; but for botanical amateurs, they may 199 be filled with alpines, or herbaceous plants in small pots. To a botanist, even if he had no other resource than the native plants of Britain, this would afford a perpetual source of enjoyment ; because the length of the four sides of the parapet being one hundred and sixty feet, the oblong and square troughs would contain six hundred and eighty pots of three inches in diameter, and of course as many species. These might be changed, arranged, and re-arranged, at pleasure.