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the back door would show in the elevation of the back of the cottage and not in the elevation of the end.

Most of the above designs apply to the plans of cottages with a recess. Fig. 1 to Fig. 8 are adapted to these plans-that is to say, to such plans as No. I to No. 6; Nos. 16 and 17 are also plans of a similar form. The plans No. 7 and No. 8 may also be roofed in a similar manner. Such designs as Fig. 1 and Fig. 2 are especially well suited to these two. Plans Nos. II, 12, 13, and 14, which have a parlour and two upstairs bedrooms, are very simply roofed, by making the ridge of the roof over the middle of the front rooms, and carrying it down at the back as a lean-to over the scullery. The difference in length in the front and the back roofs gives such a pair of cottages a great advantage over a plan with an equal roof in point of appearance, as may be observed readily enough in some parts of the country, where most of the cottages, belonging to the Railway Companies, are built with a roof of this kind, being otherwise

brick cottages with slate roofs of the plainest possible description; these cottages are certainly much above the average of new brick cottages in personal appearance.

In these designs I have thought it unnecessary to give more than the front elevation and that of the end, from which the elevation of the back of the building will be readily understood. These plans and elevations are intended not so much as plans to be worked from exactly as they are here drawn (although most of them, no doubt, may be so used), as illustrations of the various methods in which pairs of cottages can be built, and of the advantages and disadvantages of each arrangement of them, and of the means by which they may be made handsome buildings instead of the contrary. That I have succeeded only very partially, especially in the latter part of this, I am fully aware. Not being able to devote more than a small amount of time to a subject which is large and intricate, what I have to say thereon can scarcely be more than a few imperfect hints,

and I hope that it will be regarded as such. I shall be perfectly well satisfied, if it should help any one who has more time than myself for studying the subject, to do so to better purpose than I have done.

NOTE: There is one mode of roofing the double cottage with a recess at each end, such as Fig. 1 to 4, and Fig. 6, to which I have not alluded, but which is, nevertheless, not unfrequently used; in which, instead of the single gable over the middle part of the cottage, shown in Fig. 6, this part is roofed with a double gable. The objection to this mode of roofing a cottage of this form is, the level gutter between the gables, which is both expensive, and apt to become leaky. But on the other hand it must be allowed, that, in other respects, it is a very convenient form of roof, and that it is, perhaps, easier to make a pretty design for this form of cottage, with a double gable in front, than in any other way.

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CHAPTER V.

DETAILS OF DESIGN.

ALTHOUGH the first and most essential thing in a good design is that the general proportions should be good, and that in the elevation, when drawn without any ornament or detail, no part should appear out of keeping or in bad proportion with the rest; and although, if this be wanting in a building, no amount of ornament or excellence of workmanship can make the design otherwise than bad, yet the effect of a building may be infinitely improved by well-contrived details, and by ornament so adapted to the general design as to clothe it and set it off to advantage. We have only to look to nature to understand this: each leaf on a tree is not the less carefully formed, and

each petal of a flower is not the less delicately shaded, because the proportions of the limbs of the tree are grand, and the outline of the flower beautiful. In nature we see an infinite attention to the minutest detail, adapted to forms which are beautiful in themselves without the detail; and if we mean to do anything well ourselves, we must, so far as we go, act upon the same principle if it be only in the building of a barn; and in a building of so simple a character as a cottage ought to be, there is almost the more need of attention to the form and arrangement of the necessary details, so as to make them a help to the general design, inasmuch as anything in the shape of elaborate ornament, or of ornament for the mere sake of ornament, is quite out of keeping with the character of the building, and is therefore in bad taste, and hideous, and vulgar. And even in so small a building as a cottage, a very great deal may be done in the way of making the necessary details an ornament to the building. The few remarks which follow must not be

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