Let us again proceed by way of example, taking a largish cottage designed for a client who wished to live a quiet simple life, yet on a scale that would allow of his enjoying the more necessary comforts and refinements. The site is near a small Derbyshire town, and consists of a mound caused by the out-crop of some shale grit. On the north runs a stream, to which the ground falls precipitously; the road is to the west, and there is a steep fall here also; to the east the fall is slight, while to the south the ground rises gently. There are fine views in all directions, most interesting to the north, least so to the south. The client, however, desired the main windows of the living-room to be to the west, having a special liking for the evening light. The site seemed to demand a simple oblong house with plain span-roof kept as low as possible, forming a sort of crest on the steep-sided mound.
The western end of the building becomes the living-room, having windows with the desired outlook. There is a window to the north to command the best of the view; another on the south side admits plenty of sun; and in addition on this side there is the outer door, placed there that it may be possible to enjoy the charm which a door opening direct from a room upon a sunny garden always gives. Such a door must, however, be so placed that while the peep out is obtained the comfort of the room is not destroyed. Here we have gathered the two doors and the stair foot together in a narrow part of the room out of the way, leaving all the rest of the space comfortable to occupy. The fire is placed on the north wall, in a deep recess; one side of which is devoted to rest, the other to work. The former is occupied by a comfortable low seat; in the latter is fixed a plate-rack, and a working dresser fitted with a small fixed bowl for washing up glass and china. All the kitchen work done in the living-room is thus confined to the one corner handy to the fire for cooking, and well lighted by the north window. The fireplace is designed to be used as a closed cooking stove or as an open fire to sit round. The floor of the recess is tiled, which enhances a little the feeling of sitting on the hearth, and at the same time affords the most easily cleaned surface for the working corner. The arrangement, though producing a little the effect of a room within a room, secures at anyrate some of the cosiness of an ingle. We are enabled to get a sheltered garden-seat by reducing the width of the recess to a more comfortable dimension. The ingle is further defined by an archway, on one side of which is fitted a writing desk, and on the other the piano is designed to stand, occupying part of the space under the rising stairs, the remaining portion being taken up with a store cupboard opening into the kitchen. A second resting place is provided by a wide low window seat in the main window. Fixed seats are arranged for two sides of the meal table, one having a high back to screen it from any draught coming through the outer door.
To this one good room is added a kitchen for the more dirty work, fitted with a small range; a good cupboard for coats and hats by the entrance; a coal-place and larder. Upstairs are four bedrooms, necessarily rather small; one has a bed-recess taken off the largest room to help it, and as it is over the low ceiling of the ingle, it gets the advantage of extra height under the sloping roof; and thus the low ceiling, which adds so much to the feeling of cosiness in an ingle, is made to benefit the bedroom over. Where some such arrangement as this is not possible, we sometimes utilize the space between the low ceiling and the floor above as a storage cupboard, and we often take advantage of it for ventilating purposes, by bringing fresh air into the room, slightly warmed by passing behind the fire, and delivering it over the opening to the recess, where it is distributed with the least possible draught. Where an outlet into a flue is desirable to supplement the exhaust due to the fire, we find this a very good place to arrange it. In a room with close-fitting iron casements, sufficiently well built not to leak excessively through floors, skirting, and door, the most frequent cause of a smoky chimney is the want of sufficient air supply, and some form of inlet is an absolute necessity. For bedrooms this may be successfully arranged in some cases through a hollow fender kerb.
All the bedrooms in this cottage are so arranged as to have a fairly comfortable corner between the fire and a window, where one can sit to read or write. An east aspect is obtained for the bath-room, and a linen cupboard warmed by the cylinder is provided.
Of the elevations I need only say that local random range stone is used for the ground story, while for the upper portion the need for obtaining four bedrooms over a house so narrow requires the use of nine inch brick walls which are rough-cast in cement. The roof is covered with local stone slate.
It is obvious that the living-room of this cottage could with much less trouble have been made a four-square room with a fire at one end and a door at the other; and might have been furnished with a mixture of kitchen and parlour furniture. But I shall have sadly missed the purpose of this paper should you not now feel, as we do, that life would be immensely more comfortable and more dignified in a room such as I have been describing, where each requirement has been considered and provided for, and which has had just the shape and arrangement given to it that seemed best to meet those requirements; where, moreover, all the furniture has been designed in keeping with its place and its purpose, so that there is no incongruity between the desk and the dresser, the piano and the plate-rack.
Time will not permit me to refer in detail to any smaller cottage plans. But enough has, I hope, been said to make it quite clear, that, whatever the size of the house, we think it should grow, both as a utilitarian plan and as an artistic creation, out of the real needs of the occupants; and that the art of designing small houses and cottages consists, not in following any accepted code of conventions, however useful these may be in their place, but in working out such a convenient and comely setting for the special life that shall be lived in them as shall enable that life to expand itself to the fullest extent, not merely unhampered by the building in which it is clothed, but actually stimulated by a congenial surrounding.
