Page:An Encyclopædia of Cottage, Farm, and Villa Architecture and Furniture.djvu/835

 BEAU IDEAL OF AN ENGLISH VILLA. 811 in miserable lofts over the stables, I would have a bed-room provided for them in the bailifiTs lodge, that they might be under his inspection. Young labourers often acquire habits of drunkenness and immorality by sleeping at the farm, where they are away from the control of parents and masters ; one of the many evils which have arisen to the peasantry from the system of large farms. When the land was in small farms, the young carters and ploughboys usually slept and boarded in the master's house. 1731. The Keeper^s Lodge. I beUeve I have now mentioned all the usual appur- tenances to a gentleman's country residence, except the keeper's lodge, which should be a pretty picturesque cottage, on a woody eminence in the park, where it would be extremely ornamental. 1732. The nUage. I will add a few observations upon the sort erf" village which would contribute to the general beauty of the place. I should choose to have the vUlage at no great distance from the house,' for the sake of cheerfulness. A pretty comfortable village is always a pleasing object, and even the " rural sounds " of a vUlage, when heard at a distance, would remove that unpleasant feeling of cheerless solitude, which is often expe- rienced at a secluded country-house. The large mansion of a nobleman is often placed in a very retii-ed situation, in the centre of an immense park. The numerous visiters, and the host of servants and retainers, produce a sort of bustle and cheerfulness about it, while the family is resident there ; but, when silence reigns around the deserted mansion, it is commonly as cheerless as a palace in the wilderness. As I should desire, therefore, to have the viUa in the immediate neighbourhood of a villeige for the sake of cheerfulness, I should, of course, wish it to be a pretty village ; because no other can be cheerful. Now, there are several kinds of pretty villages. The effect of an irregular street of old-fashioned cottages is often highly picturesque ; but I should prefer a scattered village, in which the houses are arranged in groups, as being more convenient, and gene- rally more pleasing. Cottages crowded together in a continued row have too much of the appearance, and have in fact many of the inconveniences and nuisances, of a dirty back street in a country town. The people live too close together ; if the street be narrow, the houses are dark ; there is not a free circulation of air, nor space for proper drainage, and the gardens are necessarily small narrow slips, shaded by the numerous trees and hedgerows, and of course unproductive. These inconveniences are avoided, and a more cheerful effect produced, where the houses are scattered in irregular groups, and at irregiJcir distances, on each side of the road, and aroimd the tillage green ; some of the &rm houses, with their numerous buildings standing at a little distance in fields, and the whole embellished by the surrounding pastures and hedgerow timber. L'nder this arrangement you have not the nuisance of a dirty village street ; the cottages are more light and cheerful ; the gardens and orchards would be more extensive and more pro- ductive ; and the cottage allotments, whether of arable land or pasture, might be con- tiguous to the houses. Supposing, then, that the approach to the park entrance of the villa was through a scattered village, we wiU suppose, in the first place, that a good road passes through it, wide and open, and always diy and clean. At the beginning of the village the houses would be thinly scattered on one or both sides of the road. Perhaps the first dwelling you would observe, would be a respectable farm house and buildings standing retired from the road, in a field, with a few old trees around it. A little farther on, perhaps a pretty double cottage, with its orchards and low outhouses, would stand on a gentle eminence backed by a copse ; opposite to it a break in the hedgerow timber would probably let in a view with a group of cottages in the fi.elds at a short distance. As you proceed, the groups of cottages would most likely increase in number, some close to the road, others a little removed from it, all weU sheltered by hedgerows and trees ; tUl you pass by a rude bridge over a shallow stream which crosses the village green, and nms along a rocky channel for a short distance near the road ; the banks fringed with underwood. At that end of the green where the high road crosses it wovdd be some of the village tradesmen's houses ; in a retired spot, at the other end, would be a pretty building for the school ; and round the whole a few scattered cottages and farm houses, and plenty of trees. A narrow road would in all probability branch off from the main road across the green, passing through the brook by a ford ; the green would also be intersected by footpaths, and there would most likely be stepping-stones, or one or two rude foot-bridges over the brook : it woidd not be a pretty green without a few old thorns, and two or three old trees, or groups of trees, scattered over it. Of covu^se, there would generally be a donkey or two, or perhaps two or three of the cottagers' cows, or some geese grazing on it ; and there would always be children playing, and the illagers passing to and fro, to contribute to the rural effect of the scene. When the road had passed the green, the cottages would probably be less frequent, and the trees thicker in the hedge- rows as you advance to the park gate, which would appear to terminate the road ; which Would, however, branch off to the right or left as convenience required before you reached the gate. The above is a description of hundreds of villages to be seen in all parts of