Page:An Encyclopædia of Cottage, Farm, and Villa Architecture and Furniture.djvu/209

 COTTAGE DWELLINGS IN VARIOUS STYLES. 185 picturesque. Besides, it adds to the comfort of the poor, to have a neiglibour close at hand, in case of sickness ; and, in other respects, near neighbours may be mutually useful to each other. For example : suppose the mother of a family living in the larger cottage has occasion to go from home during the absence of her husband at his work, she may leave the key and her younger children with the old woman in the next house. It also facilitates attendance on divine worship, as the two families might alternately heat their Qvens on Sundays, and one of the women might remain at home, to take care of the dinners for both houses, and have an eye to the gardens ; a very necessary precaution in most English villages, particularly in the fruit season. Besides these obvious advantages, there is a feeling of security and cheerfulness in having a near neighbour, especially to an old couple, who must often stand in need of assistance. In closely built villages, three cottages may occasionally be united ; l)ut this number should never be exceeded ; avoiding, above all things, that school of idleness, dirt, and wickedness, a continued row of cottages : — ' That infecte<l row, they call the street,' as Crabbe happily expresses it ; in which are commonly found the bad habits of a crowded city population ; and where one dirty, quarrelsome, gossiping woman gene- rally annoys or contaminates all her neighbours. Not that rows of houses are necessarily unpicturesque ; for, though modem rows are usually frightful, streets of contiguous houses may be found in many old villages in England, which have an exceedingly pleasing effect. The principal objections to rows are, indeed, the demoralising effect they generally have upon the inhabitants, and the preference which almost all the well- disposed poor give to a detached house, or to only one or two neighbours." 371. Criticism. We cordially approve of the reasons given for designing this double cottage. The evils of streets, in the present state of our working population, are no doubt great ; because the labouring classes have as yet no idea of co-operating together either for enjoyment or advantage. If they had, as we shall hereafter show, the as- semblage of houses in streets and squares to a certain extent, even in villages, would be attended with very great advantages. In a country where fuel is abundant, or the winter mild, as it generally is in Wiltshire (the county for which this cottage was designed}, fires will seldom require to be made in the bed-rooms, and a flue under the kitchen floor will not be necessary. All the chimneys are well contrived to unite in one cluster of angular stacks ; and this is judiciously placed in the interior, and not in the outside walls. The projection of the framework of the upper part of the walls, over the stonework of the lower, is both scientific and picturesque ; because it will preserve the windows from the rain, and produce a striking horizontal line of shade across the elevation. Besides, when one object is placed upon another, we are pleased to see it either projecting outwards, like the capital of a column ; or inclining inwards, at a regular slope, like the sides of an obelisk or pyramid. The source of the beauty lies in the evidence, which, in either case, is afforded, of the exercise of improved design. We do not altogether like the porch, ■which a stranger might mistake for some inferior appendage. A porch being, to a cer- tain extent, a luxury, should, we think, be generally in a conspicuous stj'le of art, com- pared with the rest of the building. Perhaps, also, the oriel window is rather too insig- nificant ; but this might easily be remedied, by raising it at top, and lowering it at bottom. This done ; the porch altered ; and the whole placed on a platform, so as to keep the interior perfectly dry ; the effect would be to us altogether satisfactory.