Page:An Encyclopædia of Cottage, Farm, and Villa Architecture and Furniture.djvu/271

 COTTAGE DWELLINGS IN VAIIIOUS STYLES. '247 to the different barrels in the cellar, as is done in the brcwhonse of the Bush Inn, at Dudley. Adjoining the brewhoiise is an apartment, m, with a cellar under it, for keeping potatoes and other roots; the upper part being devoted to fruits, herbs, and seeds. At this extremity of the building are the batlis, &c. The two dining-rooms are each forty feet by twenty-five feet, which will afford space for two tables in each room four feet broad by twenty feet long; and these, with side-tables along the sides of the rooms, will dine IGO persons at once, in the two rooms, 'llie entrance to these rooms is direct from the kitchen, and they are supposed to be surrounded by a sideboard shelf, one foot broad, above the dining-board, which may be two feet in breadth. The four detached tables are also supposed to have narrow elevated shelves, running along their centres, on which may be placed plates, and various articles, to which the party at table may help themselves, and thus lessen the labour of waiting. The tables may have a strip of iron along their margins immediately under the line of plates, and this iron may be easily kept hot during dinner liy a very small pipe of hot water passing under it ; thus presen-ing the food of each individual quite hot while being eaten. The office and public library, infant school, and the two Lancasterian schools for the older boys and girls, which, when not occupied by the chUdien, may serve as lecture-rooms, places of public discussion, &c. , may be heated by hot-water pipes from the common fire ; as will the water in the baths, which it is supposed will be in use every day for washing the children. These bath rooms may, if requisite, be easily filled with steam, medicated or otherwise, for the benefit oi rheumatic patients, and along their sides there may be long troughs, with forms beside them, tor the larger childi-en to sit on while washing their feet; and into these troughs hot or cold water may be admitted by cocks, and drawn off in the same manner by a waste pipe, which will convey it to the manure tanks. A similar process to this, for washing children's feet, is practised at Christ's Hospital, London. The chimney of the grand central fire may serve at the same time as a tower for a turret clock, which should have fo'xr faces, and be placed so high as to be seen from the inner windows of all the dwellings. It should be made to play chimes at certain hours, such as the time of risLiig, of taking meals, of going to school, &c. &c. ; and at night the dials should be Uluminated. In this tower there might also be a bell, for ringing on extraordinary occasions. In the fire house there may be a small two-horse power steam engine, which, by very simple machinery, may communicate with the kitchen, to work a kneading machine, a machine for chopping meat, breaking sugar, mashing potatoes, &c. ; with the wash-house, to work the washing and wringing machine ; with the scullery, for washing potatoes and other roots ; with the knife and shoe house, for setting in motion a knife- cleaner (see Mech. Mag., vol. ii. p. 409.), shoe-brusher (as at the Angel Inn, Oxford), a coat beater and brusher, &c. ; with the drying-room, for working a mangle ; with the dairy, for churning and breaking the curd of cheese, &e. ; and, when employed in none of these oflSces, in turning a small bone-crusher, to prepare bones for making soup, and in raising water to a cistern over the scullerj', placed on exactly the same level as the four cisterns placed over the four angular water-closets, and communicating with them in such a manner that there should always be the same depth of water in all the five cisterns. From the central cistern there should be pipes for conveying it to all the dif- ferent offices, including even the dining-rooms and the schools ; and to each cock there ought to be a small sink, communicating with a common di-ain leading to one of the four angidar cess-pools. iMany other modes of applying the power of the steam engine to domestic purposes will doubtless suggest themselves in practice. We have omitted to introduce a gasometer ; because, though we believe that in towns gas might be advan- tageously employed for the purposes of cooking and heating, as well as lighting, yet, for a college of so humble a description, it might involve more expense and trouble than it would be desirable to incur. Neither do we consider the steam engine, nor the various machines which it is intended to set in motion, as at all essential to the plan ; but we have suggested 'them, because, in many parts of the country, in the mining districts for example, the rate of wages is suflSciently liigh to allow of their introduction, and every one, in such districts, understands their management. The only feature in the way of apparatus, that is essentially necessary, is that of Perkins, for heating by hot water; and the reason why we consider this essential is, that it will convey to each of the eighty dwellings a higher degree of heat than can possibly be done by steam, and this at a cheaper rate, than by any other mode at present known. But if the idea oil'- individuals ever cooking any thing for themselves in their own dwellings, or preserving any thing there at a higher temperature than 180', is given up, which we think it very well might be, as the public kitchen is at a convenient distance for supplying hot water, &c., to all; then, instead of Perkins's apparatus for circidating hot water at a temperature of 300°, steam might be circidated at the ordinary temperature of 180° and upwards. The apparatus for this pui-pose would not be so cheap as that of Perkins, but it would be more easUy put up, and kept in repair, in remote districts. In putting up a steam