Page:An Encyclopædia of Cottage, Farm, and Villa Architecture and Furniture.djvu/52

 ;,'8 COTTAGE, FARM, AND VILLA ARCHITECTURE. carpenter, by the section of a portion of the wall and roof, drawn to a scale of half an inch to a foot, fig. 27, i. The wall of the court-yard in countries where flag-stones abound may be formed of a continuous line of these stones fixed in the earth, edge to edge ; or it may be constructed of boards, or pales ; or built of wood, pise, or blocks of compressed earth. If formed of earth, the wall ought to have a coping either of stone or boards. The raised platform may be made of the earth dug from the dung-pit and well, or from any other convenient source, taking care not to employ any earth for this purpose, rich enough to be used for the garden, if it can possibly be avoided ; the entrance door may be formed of what carpenters call bead and batten (bead, a circular moulding, stuck on the edge of a batten, i. e. a scaitling or piece of wooden stuff, from two to four inches broad, and one inch thick), with cross back bars inside. 58. General Estimate. The cubic contents of this building are 4,000 feet, and the following is the manner in which these contents are calculated : Length of the front of the main building, 14 feet 4 inches. Width of the main building,14 feet 4 inches. Height from the bottom of the foundations of the main building to the middle of the roof, 14 feet. Feet lu. Lines Then for the contents of the main building 14 : 4x 14 : 4X 14=^2,876 2 8 Length of the front of both wings, 8 feet. Width of both wings, 1 1 feet. Height of both wings, 10 feet. Then for the contents of both wings SxHX 10= 880 Add for the wall round the court yard, and to make an even sum 3,756 243 4,000 4,000 feetat Crf.,is£l00; at 4(/., £66 : 13s:4rf; and at 3rf., £50. 59. Garden. The dung-pit and well show that this cottage is intended to have a garden, which ought, if possible, to be around it ; but as dwellings like this in Britain are often placed as lodges to entrance gates, and stand on the margin of a planta- tion or shrubbery, the garden in that case should be on the side of the house which has windows ; because that side only in such dwellings is generally left open to the air and light. High trees or shrubs near a house, if on a side which may happen to have no windows, do comparatively little injury in the way of obstructing the ventilation and lighting of the house, to what they do on the windowed side. It is a com- mon practice in Britain to place the kitchen gardens of lodges of this sort in the interior of the plantation or shrubbery, so 29 that they may be concealed from the road ; and to have only a flower garden on the front or open side of the house ; but in this case the kitchen garden is of very little use to the occupant ; the surface being overshadowed by the trees, and the soil exhausted by their roots. Whatever is decidedly contrary to utility and convenience, must be in bad taste, though it may seem to a superficial observer to be other- 30 wise. 60. Expression. A plain cottage, like the present, cannot be said to be in any particular style of architecture ; though it belongs more to the Grecian than tS3 the Gothic, from the proportions of the windows, and from the blocks or cantilevers, fig. 27, i, supporting, or seeming to support, the eaves of the roof If the door and the two windows had Grecian architraves and mouldings (masonry supposed to be in imitation of the original beams