can be very little objection to passing through it to the back door. Many persons will prefer this arrangement, and it will be seen that, in some of the plans, a little awkwardness in the construction of the staircase might be avoided by adding one passage to the scullery, and so making a passage of the scullery to the back door.

§ 1. Plans of Cottages with a Living-Room and a Scullery on the Ground-Floor, and three upstairs Bedrooms.

This is the form of cottage most generally required for a labourer's family throughout England. Almost all the prizes which have at different times been offered by societies and individuals for plans of labourers' cottages, have been for cottages of this form. In consequence, I do not think that there is much more to be learnt as to what can be done in the way of constructing a good cottage of this form. At the Agricultural Show at Leeds in 1861, 320 sets of cottage plans were exhibited,

more than two-thirds of which were of this form; and the plans here given are partly the result of studying the many varieties of arrangement to be found amongst those plans.

The plans Nos. 1 and 2 (Plate I.) are arranged in the manner which I suggested about four years ago, as a good one for this form of cottage. Almost all the best plans shown at Leeds were precisely similar, or very nearly so, to one or the other of these two, with this exception, that, in the plans here given, a passage is carried through from the front to the back door-a modification, which is, I think, a substantial improvement, and which is due to Messrs. Richardson and Ross of Darlington, to whom the first prize was given at the Leeds Show. The merits of this plan, in providing separate entrances to the rooms, without waste of space, have been frequently pointed out, and I think it is hardly necessary to dwell on them here. The principal objection to the plan is, that the divisions between the rooms upstairs, do not correspond with those on the ground-floor.

In plan No. 3 is shown a slight variation from the two preceding ones. In this one the divisions in the upper floor correspond to those below; and it is no small advantage in this arrangement, that by this means the flues of the living-room and scullery fireplaces may be placed in the wall between the living-room and scullery, and therefore, whether the cottage be built singly or in pairs attached to one another by either the long or the short side, the fireplaces and flues are entirely within the cottage; whereas in Nos. I and 2 they will be in an outside wall, unless the cottages be built in pairs attached by the long side. This position of the fireplaces also facilitates an arrangement, which will be mentioned more particularly hereafter, for supplying hot water in the scullery by a tap from the boiler in the living-room fireplace.

The area occupied by this plan is rather larger than that occupied by plans Nos. 1 and 2, from the coal-hole being placed within the walls of the cottage. Without some such contrivance it is impossible, in a cottage of this form, to obtain three

upstairs bedrooms, if the larger bedroom be made of the same size as the living-room downstairs. Indeed, it will be seen that, in consequence of the partitions on the two floors being made to correspond, the third bedroom becomes smaller than in plans Nos. 1 and 2, although the whole area of the bedrooms is larger. The additional cost of making the cottage thus much larger is trifling, because there must be a coal-hole somewhere; so that the extra cost will be that of about fifty square feet of chamber floor, and some eight or nine square yards of wall. It will also be seen that the living-room in these plans may easily be made smaller, without otherwise altering their construction. Suppose, in No. 3, the living-room be 12 ft. long instead of 14 ft., and 10 ft. II ft. or 12 ft. wide, there still might be a scullery 9 ft. 6 in. by 6 ft., and a coal-hole 9 ft. 6 in. by 2 ft. 6 in. (or a scullery only, 9 ft. 6 in. by 9 ft.), and a bedroom over, 9 ft. 6 in. by 9 ft.

The plans Nos. 4 and 5, Plate II. differ from the preceding plans, in having the staircase placed

C

opposite to the entrance door instead of at the side of it, and also in having the scullery and pantry transposed. The stairs may be placed in this position without altering the usual position of the pantry and scullery (which may be readily understood by looking at the plan No. 17, Plate VII.), but it makes, I think, a better cottage as here arranged, when the upper floor of each cottage occupies the same space as the ground-floor of that cottage, which is the case in No. 4 and No. 5, but is not the case with No. 17. This plan, No. 4, is, I think, a very good one, and it occupies less space in proportion to the accommodation which it affords, than either No. I or No. 2.* No. 5 bears nearly the same relation to No. 4, that No. 3 does to No. I. As in No. 3, the living-room fireplace in No. 5 may be placed in the inner wall of the cottage; but there is not quite so much advantage gained in this plan as in the former ones by so doing, in consequence of the wall in

*For this arrangement I am partly indebted to a somewhat similar plan which was sent to Leeds by Mr. Dain of Burslem.