large tiles with a half-round channel in them five or six inches wide, which are used for making gutters of. In Fig. 20 is shown a cor

mmi

Fig. 20.

nice formed of single bevel-ended bricks with a row of these above them. The three last of these figures are only adapted for cornices in so small a building as a cottage. The other three may be used for stringcourses as well as cornices. Many more patterns, as good or better than these, may easily be made out of the common materials to be found in every brickyard by the exercise of a little ingenuity; and several other shaped bricks may be made in a common brick mould, at a very trifling cost, by merely nailing pieces of wood into the moulds; and by means of these a far greater variety of patterns may be obtained. Four such are shown in Fig. 21. As

there is nothing, perhaps, which so much increases the good effect of a building at so small a cost as brick cornices and stringcourses, it is very desirable that those who have leisure and taste for the study of what is ornamental should devote a little of these to

Fig. 21.

this subject.

The only other particular of design which I have to notice is the form and position of the windows. Something has already been said* respecting the kind of windows most suited to cottages, and also† with respect to the importance of them to the design of a cottage. Next to the chimneys, the windows are the matter of detail which forms the most

in the design of any building.

their position, we are in some

important feature

With respect to

measure tied by

considerations of comfort and convenience.

In

the first place, in a cottage especially, they never ought to be near the floor, either in the ground

floor rooms, or in the bedrooms. In the latter they often are so placed, but nothing can be more uncomfortable both in reality and in appearance. The light in any room should be on the table, and not come up from below it. This is true for all rooms everywhere, of whatever size; but of all rooms it is most true for a cottage bedroom, and of the greatest importance there, that the window never should be placed near the floor. Many such rooms are absolutely useless and uninhabitable with the window in that position, which become comfortable and roomy enough if the window be raised three or four feet from the floor. In all the designs in this book the windows are drawn three feet above the floor of the room on both floors. This is sufficient; but I think that no window ought to be a less distance than this above the floor certainly not so in a bedroom. In these there is no objection to their being as much as 4 ft. or even 4 ft. 6 in. from the floor. This may, usually, be allowed to depend upon which has the

best appearance in the design; but it may also, sometimes, be a convenience in construction to raise the windows thus high, in the bedroom of a cottage where the window is in a dormer, it is sometimes convenient that the sill should be on a level with the eaves of the roof, by which means the spouting can be carried on continuously under the window, and especially so if the spouting be supported on brackets or corbels built into the wall. The window should also generally be in the in the smaller rooms especially, no absolute rule can be laid down on this point. As to the form of the windows, the only thing that I have to add to what has already been said is, that it may often be a great improvement to a design to divide the larger window into two or more distinct lights. One such is shown in Fig. 22, drawn on the same scale as the plans, as an illustration of what is meant. In this the window is made to consist of four narrow

middle of the room, but,

Fig. 22.

lights with divisions between, which may be formed of brick (or still better of stone) with chamfered edges stopped upwards, and with arches of thin bricks over the heads of the lights; the sill is also supposed to be made of tile and brick, as shown in the chapter upon Details of Construction. Of course such a window is more expensive than quite a plain one, but not very much so if done in brickwork. I think that the best way of making the lights to open in such a window as this, is to form them of small sashes in which the lights are hung one to another, as has been explained already, at page 51.