Happy England

by Marcus B. Huish

The roof-tree was always of hand-hewn oak, and this it was, according to Birket Foster, which gave to many of the old roofs their pleasant curves away from the central chimney. The ordinary unseasoned sawn deal of the modern roof may swag in any direction.

The roof-covering where the land was chiefly arable, or the distance from market considerable, was usually wheaten thatch, which was certainly the most comfortable, being warm in winter and cool in summer, just the reverse of the tiles or slates that have practically supplanted it.[11] In other districts the cottages are covered with what are known as stone slates, thick and heavy. Roofs to carry the weight of these had always to be flattened, with the result that they require mortaring to keep out the wet. The West Tarring cottage ([Plate 51]) is an instance of a stone roofing.

The red tiles, which were used for the most part, are certainly the most agreeable to the artistic eye, for their seemingly haphazard setting, due in part to the builder and in part to nature, affords that pleasure which always arises from an unstudied irregularity of line. Roof tiles were made thicker and less carefully in the old days, and our artist’s truth in delineation may be detected in almost any drawing by examining where the weight has swagged away the tiles between the main roof beams.

Unlike chimneys erected by our cottage builders of to-day, which appear to issue out of a single mould, those of the untutored architects of the past present every variety of treatment and appearance.

The old solidly built chimney seen in many of Mrs. Allingham’s cottages (Chiddingfold, Plate 44) is worthy of note as a type of many sturdy fellows which have resisted the ravages of time, and have stood for centuries almost without need of repair. In old days the chimney was regarded not only as a special feature but as an ornament, and not as a necessary but ugly excrescence. Although probably it only served for one room in the house, that service was an important one, and so materials were liberally used in its construction.

In Kent and Sussex many of the chimneys are of brick, although the house and the base of the chimney-stack are of stone. This arose from the stone not lending itself to thin slabs, and consequently being altogether too cumbrous and bulky.

The windows in the old cottages were naturally small when glass was a luxury, and became fewer in number when a tax upon light was one of the means for carrying on the country’s wars. They were usually filled with the smallest panes, fitted into lead lattice, so that breakages might be reduced to the smallest area. Not much of this remains, but a specimen of it is to be seen in the Old Buckinghamshire House ([Plate 52]). One of the few alterations that Mrs. Allingham allows herself is the substitution of these diamond lattices throughout a house where she finds a single example in any of the lights, or if, as she has on more than one occasion found, that they have been replaced by others, and are themselves stacked up as rubbish. She has in her studio some that have been served in this way, and which have now become useful models.

It would be imagined that the sense of pride in these, the last traces of their village ancestors, would have prompted their descendants, whether of the same kin or not, to deal reverently with them, and endeavour to hand on as long as possible these silent witnesses to the honest workmanship of their forbears. Such, unfortunately, is but seldom the case. If any one will visit Witley with this book in his hand, and compare the present state of the few examples given there, not twenty years after they were painted, he will see what is taking place not only in this little village but through the length and breadth of England. It is not always wilful on the part of the landlord, but arises from either his lack of sympathy, time, or interest.

He probably has a sense of his duty to “keep up” things, and so sends his agent to go round with an architect and settle a general plan for doing up the old places (usually described as “tumbling down” or “falling to pieces”). Thereupon a village builder makes an estimate and sends in a scratch pack of masons and joiners, and between them they often supplant fine old work, most of it as firm as a rock, with poor materials and careless labour, and rub out a piece of old England, irrecoverable henceforth by all the genius in the world and all the money in the bank. The drainage and water supply, points where improvement is often desirable, may be left unattended to. But whatever else is decided on, no uneven tiled roofs, with moss and houseleek, must remain; no thatch on any pretence, nor ivy on the wall, nor vine along the eaves. The cherry or apple tree, that pushed its blossoms almost into a lattice, will probably be cut down, and the wild rose and honeysuckle hedge be replaced by a row of pales or wires. The leaden lattice itself and all its fellows, however perfect, must inevitably give place to a set of mean little square windows of unseasoned wood, though perhaps on the very next property an architect is building imitation old cottages with lattices! With the needful small repairs, most of the real old cottages would have lasted for many generations to come, to the satisfaction of their inhabitants and the delight of all who can feel the charm of beauty combined with ancientness—a charm once lost, lost for ever. And unquestionably the well-repaired old cottages would generally be more comfortable than the new or the done-up ones, to say nothing of the “sentiment” of the cottager. An old man, who was in a temporary lodging during the doing-up of his cottage, being asked, “When shall you get back to your house?” answered, “In about a month, they tells me; but it won’t be like going home.” At the same time it is fair to add that many of the “doings-up” in Mrs. Allingham’s country are of good intention and less ruthless execution than may be seen elsewhere, and that certain owners show a real feeling of wise conservatism. It would perhaps be a low estimate, however, to say that a thousand ancient cottages are now disappearing in England every twelvemonth, without trace or record left—many that Shakespeare might have seen, some Chaucer; while the number “done up” is beyond computation.

The baronial halls have had abundant recognition and laudation at the hands of the historian and the painter; the numerous manor-houses, less pretentious, often more lovely, very little; the old cottages next to none, even the local chronicler running his spectacles over them without a pause.