XXXVI. Cottages

In the planning of modern cottages under the guidance of the Knjj M ni general principles which have already been advanced in the IS consideration of the plans of houses, it will be observed that the problem is here much simplified by the absence of the servants, while the increased rigour of economical restrictions eliminates all but the absolutely essential. In seeking for a basis for the plan, the essential fact to be borne in mind is that the cottage household in most cases maintains but one fire and that fire fulfils the twofold function of warming the kitchen and cooking the food. It may be at once deduced from this that the cottage family lives in its kitchen, and such will be found to be the case. In many modern cottage plans this essential fact is hardly realised, and one finds a large living-room, perhaps with a small kitchen attached, while others are sub-divided into equally minute parlour and kitchen. In all these plans it is the kitchen which will be lived in, and the parlour or living-room will be filled with pretentious furniture and kept for show. And so as the villa apes the mansion we shall find again the cottage struggling to attain the coveted elegance of the villa. The possession of a parlour with its recognised appointments is in this case not an expression of the requirements, tastes, or habits of the family, but rather the symbol of one of the degrees in that spurious scale of excellence on which the modern social system is based. Just as to the vulgar the term “carriage people” is used as a caste distinction, and the possession of a carriage is held to be a sign of merit, so on a lower plane the owner of a parlour acquires precedence over the family not ashamed to admit frankly its custom of living in its kitchen. The central feature of the cottage plan should thus be a roomy kitchen. If a parlour is added it should be relatively small, and the kitchen should dominate the plan, while an intermediate type of plan might, by including the parlour as a recess in the kitchen, obviate the necessity of the second fire.

In addition to the kitchen living-room it is desirable that a scullery or back-kitchen should be added, where the washing of dishes and other work may be done, and here, unless a separate washhouse is provided, there should be a boiler. In addition to this accommodation, a coal-store and water-closet are required, and these may often be placed in a detached position, while the pantry is generally more conveniently placed in the main building. The typical cottage should have at least three bedrooms, of which one should be larger than the other two.

The question of the bathroom as a feature in the modern cottage plan is a somewhat difiicult one. It must be frankly admitted that the average cottager would have little use for it, and in such families it is often only the children who enjoy a weekly “tub.” A recent inspection of some model cottages in which the greater part of the scullery floor-space was taken up by a full-sized bath, left one wondering as to the probable uses to which loi it would be put—whether the cottager would find it a handy place for storing potatoes, for instance, or whether, as in an actual instance, the visitor would find its dusty interior embellished by a slipper and an orange. If a bathroom is introduced it should not be on the upper floor, unless connected with a hot-water system arranged in connection with the kitchen fire. It is better on the ground-floor, because, while it is easy to come downstairs it is difficult and laborious to carry water upstairs to the bath.

The best arrangement for the bath is, then, adjoining the scullery, so arranged as to levels that the water heated in the boiler can be drawn off by a tap placed directly over the bath. Both on account of the limited supply of hot water as well as to economise space, the bath should not be five or six feet long, but modelled on the sensible American bath-tub, which allows of complete immersion with a limited water-supply.

Where there is no hot-water system it is doubtful whether there is anything to be gained by making the bath a fixture. It is much better to give the cottager the option of where ablutions shall be performed, and in cold weather in the case of the children, at any rate, the tub in front of the kitchen fire can hardly be improved on. A few cottage plans are illustrated. In those in which the cottages are shown as terraces, separate washhouses, earth-closets and coal-sheds would be provided besides the accommodation shown in the plan—the washhouses being common to two or more of the cottages. The more advanced type of cottage plan—the parlour cottage, as it may be called—is represented by the plan of the lodge at Falke Wood, and the pair of cottages illustrated under the title of Elmwood Cottages. In these the small parlour is so arranged that, divided from the living-room by a wide doorway, it represents a recess in the house-place.

Here, as in Boffin’s Bower, the cottage housewife, who, like Mrs. Boffin, wished to ihdulge in a higher flight, might define the elegances of the household by a chalk-line on the floor as Mrs. Boffin did.

Crossing that frontier the more material male would tread with mincing footsteps—speak with bated breath; and there on a Sunday the family would assemble, and find perhaps a welcome relief from the workaday associations of the kitchen. The district visitor and all those charitable and well-meaning persons who have so little respect for the privacy of the cottager would here be entertained in a portion of the house-place, which, while not so entirely isolated and self-contained as the usual musty and ill-ventilated cottage parlour is, would yet be sufficiently screened from the kitchen itself. In the kitchen the treatment of the range gives it something of the broad and inviting character of the ingle and less of the repellent and unhomely appearance of the modern utilitarian cooking-machine. As of old pots hang suspended over the open fire, while broad hobs on each side They were designed as a protest against the merely utilitarian ideals of modern building generally, and the cottage exhibition in particular, and attempted to show how the beauty of the old cottage is not incompatible with modern requirements. give ample space for cooking-utensils. In the centre of the brick floor stands the table of scrubbed deal, while the settle, the dresser with its array of homely china, and the sturdy Windsor chairs complete the furnishing of a room, which, instead of the heartless and brutal utilities of the model dwelling, would seem to minister to something more than mere material needs. In the scullery, besides the boiler, there is a small fireplace, which is always a welcome adjunct to the cottage household. It is here that in sultry summer weather the simple cooking, which in such a season is all that is required, is effected without lighting the kitchen range.

The little square court set in patterns of cobble-stones crossed by paved ways is common to both cottages, and this merging of garden paths and garden gates simplifies the approach and obviates the competing duplication of these features.

On the south side, however, the gardens are completely separated by a dividing hedge. The actual extent of the garden should be such as to amply provide the family at least with all the vegetables it requires, if not fruit, while its borders would also be set with all the old-fashioned cottage flowers. Such accommodation as is provided here should not be too much for the average cottager to expect. It is difficult accurately to estimate the cost, but in most districts this pair of cottages should be built for from It is impossible entirely to sympathise with the earnest desire of the modern philanthropist for the cheapest possible kind of country cottage, or to object entirely to restrictive by-laws in so far at least as they prevent the wholesale use of galvanised iron in country dwellings.

It is true that cottages constructed of wood might reasonably be erected in many cases with roofs of pantile, but it should not be forgotten that while the temporary building is cheaper in its cost, its shorter life and need for constant repairs makes its eventually more costly than the permanent building. Temporary building may possibly enrich the fathers, it will surely impoverish the sons, and the only possible excuse for temporary structures is that they are only built for temporary purposes. One cannot but deplore modern commercial conditions, which seem to make mean dwellings inevitable, and the work expended in building the cottage, so grudgingly bestowed by a contractor and workmen, who will do no more than is in the bond, and not so much in many cases. Under the more human conditions of rural England in the past, cottage building was done in a different spirit. One may suppose that a man then, who needed a dwelling for his family, would call together his neighbours and friends, each of whom would contribute their share of labour. All would be imbued with the primary idea of making a comely little dwelling. This would be the first consideration, and however important the financial side of the question, it would still be secondary. And this is the rule in all good work—a rule which cannot be too often insisted on. A man working in such a spirit would be ashamed to stint his work, when, by perhaps a few hours more labour he could do it well. It has been truly said that a thing of beauty is a joy for ever, but it is a saying which implies its converse—that an ugly thing is a disgrace for ever—and it may be noted how the composition of the word disgrace implies the shame one ought to feel in the creation of an object devoid of grace. It is well that cottages should be as cheap as careful and ingenious planning can make them. The time is passed for those great unbroken roof-spaces or these massive chimneys like castle towers which make so much for beauty in old cottages, but while in totally ignoring the claims of beauty, it is an easy matter for any one to design a cheap country cottage, the difficulty of the problem lies in achieving a building reasonable in cost, and not without that kind of beauty which will make it seem at home in rural surroundings.

It seems to be generally supposed by landowners who build cottages that to be practically satisfactory they must needs be ugly, and that sanitary cottages cannot possess any of those beauties which belong to old cottages and farm-houses, or, if such beauties are possible, that they can only be added by excessive cost. So widespread is this conviction that ugliness in building is generally accepted as evidence of practical qualities, of which it is held to be the natural and inevitable outcome. And so the modern cottages which are gradually destroying the beauty of English country, and which appear as hideous ulcers on the fair face of many an ancient village, are supposed to represent the inevitable result of modern progress instead of the ignorance and callousness of their builders. And so the beautiful village streets, where each cottage contributes its share to the whole effect, are gradually being transformed into sordid slums.

The only alternative to such ugliness of cottage building at present seems to be the artistic community of model dwellings, where the earnestness and reality of the ancient village is replaced by complacently picturesque semi-detached cottages, which seem to constitute a sort of high-class suburbia, and where all the superficial artistic features cannot compensate for the omission of that real beauty which seems to be rather the unconscious outcome of sound building than a quality which depends on the designing of front elevations, picturesque half-timber work, and the like.

Such buildings rarely appear as confessed cottages, but all seem to strive to pose rather as little villas, and, on the whole, one seems to prefer the unashamed ugliness of the average modern cottage to their shallow artistry. It is, perhaps, needless to add that by the general public the modern artistic community is taken at its own valuation, and its owner is content with the minimum percentage on his outlay in the fond delusion that he has been instrumental in producing an object-lesson in the art of cottage building. It is only here and there, in isolated exceptional cases, that cottages are built which are really cottages; modest and unassuming, and without any taint of the suburban villa or that underlined art which is everywhere accepted as an evidence of the advance of modern architecture.

The question of the cheap cottage has assumed such importance in recent years that it seems desirable to include plans for a pair of cottages which which would, even for this price, be something more than mere wooden shanties.

The irreducible minimum of accommodation for such cottages consists of a good-sized kitchen and scullery, three bedrooms, pantry, coal-shed, and earth-closet. In some cases the scullery may be included as a mere recess in the kitchen, but this is not desirable where the scullery is also the washhouse and bathroom.

Although in the normal cottage household three bedrooms are required, there are many families in which two will be sufficient, and thus it seems desirable that one of the three bedrooms should be placed on the ground floor, where it can be used as a parlour or bedroom as required. In this way the planning of the cottage is simplified, for in the main block two rooms are placed over two rooms, and the scullery is added as a lean-to at the back.

This pair of cottages are designed for a site in which the approach is from the south. They should, therefore, be set well back from the road, so that the outlook from the windows overlooks the garden.

The common entrance, which in the pair of cottages previously described was justified by conditions which led to the placing of the cottages near the road, with the gardens at the back, is here not so admissible, and the whole scheme serves to show how the position of cottages, in relation to a road, should vary with varying aspects, and how such conditions as these lead naturally to variety in position and plan, which adds to the interest and beauty of any group of detached buildings, and which, though appearing accidental, is actually the logical outcome of a proper study of the problem.

Note: Since writing the above these cottages have been realised at the Letchworth Garden City, where they were entered as No. 65 in the exhibition of cheap cottages.