The kitchen, as being one of the most important rooms in a hospitable mansion, is treated with due importance. The writer describes the arrangements in the kitchen of a mansion in Warwickshire, as being fitted to serve as a model. “The kitchen, scullery, larder, &c., formed a range of building on one side of the kitchen-court, separate from the house, but there was a covered way between them. The building was of two stories, the kitchen occupying the centre. It was a large lofty room, of good proportions, as high as two stories of the building. You entered it at one end, by large folding-doors, from a passage through the building; at the opposite end was the fire-place, with the screen before it; on one side of which was the door to the scullery and bakehouse, on the other a range of set coppers of different sizes. On one side of the room were two rows of windows, and under the lower row a range of charcoal stoves and hot plates: the latter to keep things warm. The other side had only the upper row of windows, and against the wall was a dresser, above which the copper cooking utensils, &c., were ranged in a very ornamental way. A long table was in the centre of the room, and over the door a dial-clock. The ceiling had a very handsome cornice, and a boss in the centre, from which hung a brass lamp. Opposite the entrance door another door admitted you to a passage, on one side of which were the larders, on the other salting-rooms, &c.; and at the end a staircase led to the cook’s apartment over. There was a sort of turret in the centre of the roof, containing a capital clock, which struck upon the dinner bell. The other offices were in the basement of the house, and the kitchen was detached, to prevent the annoyance of the smell of cooking, which commonly ascends from a kitchen beneath the house. I thought the arrangement particularly convenient, and the kitchen was really an elegant apartment. As, in a large establishment, there is cooking going on through the whole day, it is of importance to the comfort of the family, to place the kitchen in such a situation that the smell of cooking, which is particularly offensive, may not be an annoyance to the principal apartments. A house with the kitchen in the basement story is generally subject to this inconvenience, and it is usually avoided by having the kitchen and offices in a separate building adjoining the house.”
The writer continues his remarks and descriptions in a similar manner, treating of all the various parts of the building in succession; then of the riding-house, the stable-yard, the coach-houses, the harness and saddle rooms, and the dog-kennel; then of the kitchen garden, the pleasure garden, the dairy, the farm buildings for a “gentleman farmer;” and, lastly, of the village and the village church, so far as regards the relation between them and the mansion. In short, this writer seems to have proposed to himself this question—“What are the excellencies to be desired and attained in the mansion of an English country gentleman?” and he appears to have solved it by putting together the scattered fragments of his experience in various quarters, and building up an ideal mansion therefrom.
CHAPTER XII.
FIRE-PROOF HOUSES.
The attempts which have been made to render houses fire-proof are so intimately connected with the construction of dwellings, that it will be proper to give a few brief details on the subject. There are many difficulties attending these attempts; for so long as wood forms the chief inner frame-work of a house, there will always be considerable liability to destruction by fire. Most of the proposed plans have had relation to the coating of the wood with some substance which should render it less inflammable, while others have been directed rather to the rejection of combustible substances from the list of those used in house-building.
So long back as 1775, Mr. Hartley made several trials in order to test the efficacy of a method invented by him for that purpose. Thin iron plates were nailed to the top of the joists; the edges of the sides and ends being lapped over, folded close, and hammered together. Partitions, stairs, and floors were proposed to be defended in the same manner. The plates were so thin as not to prevent the floor from being nailed on the joists in the same manner as if the iron were not used; and the plates were kept from rust by being painted or varnished with oil and turpentine. Mr. Hartley had a patent for this invention; and Parliament voted a sum of money towards defraying the expense of his numerous experiments. It does not, however, appear that the plan was permanently adopted.
About the same period, Lord Mahon, afterwards Earl Stanhope, a nobleman possessing a highly inventive tact in mechanical matters, brought forward another method having the same object in view. This method was of a three-fold character, comprising under-flooring, extra-lathing, and inter-securing.
The method of under-flooring is either single or double. In single under-flooring, a common strong lath of oak or fir, about one-fourth of an inch thick, should be nailed against each side of every joist, and of every main timber, supporting the floor which is to be secured. Other similar laths are then to be nailed along the whole length of the joists, with their ends butting against each other. The top of each of these laths or fillets ought to be at an inch and a half below the top of the joists or timbers against which they are nailed; and they will thus form a sort of small ledge on each side of all the joists. These fillets are to be well bedded in a rough plaster when they are nailed on, so that there may be no interval between them and the joists; and the same plaster ought to be spread with a trowel upon the tops of all the fillets, and along the sides of that part of the joists which is between the top of the fillets and the upper edge of the joints. In order to fill up the intervals between the joists that support the floor, short pieces of common laths, whose length is equal to the width of these intervals, should be laid in the contrary direction to the joists, and close together in a row, so as to touch one another; their ends must rest upon the fillets, and they ought to be well bedded in the rough plaster, but are not to be fastened with nails. They must then be covered with one thick coat of the rough plaster, which is to be spread over them to the level of the tops of the joists; and, in a day or two this plaster should be trowelled over, close to the sides of the joists, without covering the tops of the joists with it.
In the method of double-flooring, the fillets and short pieces of laths are applied in the same manner as here noticed; but the coat of rough plaster ought to be little more than half as thick as that in the former method. Whilst the rough plaster is being laid on, some more of the short pieces of laths must be laid in the intervals between the joists upon the first coat, and be dipped deep in it. They should be laid as close as possible to each other, and in the same direction with the first layer of short laths. Over this second layer of short laths there must be spread another coat of rough plaster, which should be trowelled level with the tops of the joists, without rising above them. The rough plaster may be made of coarse lime and hair; or, instead of hair, hay chopped to about three inches in length may be substituted with advantage. One measure of common rough sand, two measures of slaked lime, and three measures of chopped hay, will form in general a very good proportion, when sufficiently beaten up together in the manner of common mortar. The hay should be put in after the two other ingredients are well mixed up together with water. This plaster should be made stiff; and when the flooring boards are required to be laid down very soon, a fourth or fifth part of quicklime in powder, formed by dropping a small quantity of water on the limestone shortly before it is used, and well mixed with this rough plaster, will cause it to dry quickly. If any cracks appear in the rough plaster work near the joists, when it is thoroughly dry, they ought to be closed by washing them over with a brush wet with mortar wash: this wash may be prepared by putting two measures of quicklime and one of common sand into a vessel, and stirring the mixture with water till the water becomes of the consistence of a thin jelly.
Before the flooring boards are laid, a small quantity of very dry common sand should be strewed over the plaster work, and struck smooth with a hollow rule moved in the direction of the joists, so that it may lie rounding between each pair of joists. The plaster work and sand should be perfectly dry, before the boards are laid, for fear of the dry rot. The method of under-flooring may be applied to a wooden staircase, but no sand is to be laid upon the rough plaster work. The method of extra-lathing maybe applied to ceiling joists, to sloping roofs, and to wooden partitions. The third method, which is that of inter-securing, is very similar to that of under-flooring; but no sand is afterwards to be laid on. Inter-securing is applicable to the parts of a building as the method of extra-lathing.
Such is a general outline of the modes proposed by Lord Mahon for rendering houses fire-proof; in which it will be seen that the safeguard consists in the use of a non-combustible material, with, and among, and between the pieces of wood forming the frame-work of a house.