Rose Court

The little house and garden now to be considered is adapted for the ordinary type of building plot, and requires a frontage of about sixty-five feet. Its equivalent in the house agent’s lists would be represented by the villa with three or more reception-rooms, each reduced to dimensions which would make them cramped and uncomfortable—each demanding, too, its separate fire. The best room would be one facing the road to the north, and this would probably be to some extent preserved from vulgar daily use, and the family would probably be crowded into a little back room where a cumbrous dining table would occupy most of the floor-space. The garden would be “tastefully laid out” with winding walks and shapeless shrubberies. In fact the whole scheme would represent the usual congestion of absurdities for which the dweller in villadom is content to pay a high rent. In the plan here submitted the central feature is necessarily the hall or living-room, and adjoining this the dining-room and drawing-room have dwindled to mere recesses sharing in the warmth of the great central fireplace, and adding to the spaciousness of the hall, of which they are a part. The small study occupies a more isolated position, and the kitchen premises towards the road are conveniently placed for service while they are completely isolated from the family rooms. On the upper floor are four good-sized bedrooms and bathroom, and over these the full development of the attic space would admit of additional bedroom accommodation, or perhaps a children’s playroom, in addition to the servants’ bedroom, boxroom, and cistern-room. The general character of this interior is structural and homely, and would present that earnest reality of effect which belongs to the confessed elements of its structure. It is the quality which is to be found in old farmhouses and cottages, but may be sought for in vain amongst the uncharted wildernesses of modern villadom. The plan of the garden is somewhat similar to that previously described, especially in that it presents three main vista-lines, each bearing a definite relation to the house. It presents a somewhat similar artistic scheme to a church, and if one considers its central rose garden as a square nave flanked by the aisles which the pergolas suggest, it will be at once apparent that the central flower garden beyond, with its screen of roses, must be the chancel where at matins and vespers pale lilies are the choristers. The orchards are thus side chapels, and between nave and chancel will be seen a miniature transept completing the vista to right and left. The reader will be able to complete still further this picture of a church of flowers which was designed merely to meet the conditions of the site, and with no conscious ecclesiastical idea. The small sketches indicate the general character of the house, and the view from the garden-room looking down one of the pergolas s also shown.

It will be noted, in this and other of the roadside houses illustrated, a site is indicated with a frontage to the north. This is generally not difficult to obtain on most building estates, because the average builder, obsessed with the fixed idea of the bay-window overlooking the road, and who prefers to display all the glories of the house and garden to the man in the street, naturally selects a road frontage facing south. In adopting the opposite arrangement, not only is privacy obtained and that air of seclusion which is essential to the ideal garden, but the house itself constitutes a substantial screen to northern winds as well as to the dust and noise of the street. In placing the kitchen premises towards the road, the route to the back door is reduced to a minimum, and the whole of the kitchen premises are isolated from the garden. In the case of a house facing a frontage to the south, it would be desirable to place it well back from the road so as to allow of a garden in front of it. The front door should then be placed at one end so that the approach to it can be formed at one side of the plot, and may be screened with a hedge from the garden. In the case of a house having a frontage to the east, it will often be desirable to adopt the same scheme as I have suggested for a northern frontage, making in this case a western garden frontage, and by the use of bays securing still a share of southern aspect. Each site will demand its own special treatment, and in those with an eastern or western frontage, where the frontage admits, it will often be desirable to place the house with its end towards the road, an arrangement which may often be met with in old villages.

That the majority of people really demand as a sine qua non that they shall have a bay-window facing the road it is difficult to believe, and its continual recurrence, I feel assured, is owing merely to a fixed idea on the part of the builder whose commercial training leads him to forget the essential difference between the house and the shop.