Page:An Encyclopædia of Cottage, Farm, and Villa Architecture and Furniture.djvu/75

 COTTAGE DWELLINGS IN VARIOUS STYLES. Ol II I III y I 9 Style, rather than its essentials ; or economy, rather than strength, durability, and comfort. The roof may be covered with plain tiles ; and some care may be bestowed on the chimneys, fig. 84, (scale, a quarter of an inch to a foot). These 85 chimneys may be built of brick, and covered with cement; or be formed of cement only. The windows may have wooden muUions, fig. 85, and wooden case- ments ; but we cannot recommend these casements being filled in with lattice-work ; for that, like ex- terior walls of brick nogging, is an inferior mode of construction. 109. Situation. As this building admits of being viewed on every side, it is suitable for an open space. A few fruit trees are its appropriate accompaniments ; and at a distance of a hundred yards, it may have as a back ground, a wood of oak, or other round-headed trees, to contrast with its upright and angular lines. It is not meant by this remark, however, either that such a wood should be planted on purpose ; or that it is worth while to give up any point of utility or convenience, in order to place a cottage of this character near such a wood. The comfort of the occupant of the cottage should take precedence of every other object, either respecting it, or its accompaniments. It has been too much the practice, hitherto, for Architects and for their employers to set down cottages, more with a view to their effect in the landscape, than to any thing else whatever ; but the habitation of a human being, however humble, ought not to be trifled with, either in resped to its accommodations, or its locality. 110. Aspect. From what we have already advanced on this subject in Chapter I. it will be understood, that in all practicable cases, we intend that the dwelling should be so placed as to admit of the sun shining on all its walls every fine day in the year, with the exception of a few weeks at the winter solstice. This, we need hardly repeat (were it not for the great importance of the subject), is to be done by imagining the general form of the ground-plan reduced to a square, and letting its diagonal be a north and south line. In most parts of Europe the door should face the south-east. When cottages are detached, and built either singly, or in pairs, and set down in a garden, the adherence to this rule of position, with respect to the sun, will add to the picturesque beauty of a village ; whatever may be the direction of the road, along the sides of which the houses and gardens are built and laid out. This fact must never be forgotten ; and indeed it should be considered, like the introduction of the platform, as a law, which in building detached cottages, ought never to be violated. In building long lines of connected dwellings of this sort, this law cannot be applied; but if the lines be in the direction of south and north, the same advantages, in point of heat and dry- ness, are obtained as by the diagonal position of detached cottages ; for the sun will shine throughout the year on the east and west sides of every dwelling; and the south and north sides being party-walls (walls of division between different houses), will be necessarily both dry and warm. 111. General Estimate. Cubic contents 9,528 feet, ai6d. per foot, £238 :4s.; at id., £158 : 16*. ; and at 3^., £119 : '2s. 112. Expression. This cottage is in what is called the old English manner, which is characterized by windows not _ ^— -i^ much higher than they are °" Dlr-'*' broad, and divided perpendicu- larly by multions (vertical divi- sions) ; by high, conspicuous, and sometimes ornamented stacks of chimneys ; by steep roofs generally covered with plain tiles, projecting at the eaves, and sometimes also at the gable ends ; and, finally, by more or less of Gothic forms or mouldings in its details. In this imitation of the old English cot- tage, an erroneous manner of arrangement is conspicuous in the stacks of chimneys, which ought not to have been in the outside walls ; and the introduction into these outer walls of brick nogging, is an inferior 02