THE REPAIR OF RURAL COTTAGES — VI
By Edwin Gunn, A. R. I. B. A.
Miscellaneous Fittings. — In the course of the repair and improvement of any old building it is common to encounter a few survivals of the work of village craftsmen for which a use has not been provided in the remodelling, and a steady wastage of such details is constantly going on. In the case of manor houses, granges, inns and dwellings above the farmhouse or cottage standards, such articles are commonly preserved, or if they rise to the level of “fine specimens” may even find space in museums or private collections, but the cottage products more often get to the scrap heap. The kind of things I have in mind are doors of the moulded and ledged types, illustrated by Mr. Nathaniel Lloyd in his craftsmanship series in this paper, internal boarded partitions on similar principles, old smith-made strap hinges, latches, tieends, casement turns and so forth, newel posts and stair balustrades, dressers, cupboards, spit and gunracks, right up to some of the simple cast-iron grates and wood mantels of the earlier years of last century.
There is always interest and naivete, and often character, about these simple everyday things. We have seen once-despised farmhouse and cottage furniture attain to appreciation and value as antique,
and it is right that it should be so. We may admire the tour de force of the advanced craftsman — the museum piece, fit mainly to be looked at; but we love the everyday product of his humbler contemporary, made to be used by men and women like ourselves. Furniture survives because it is portable and can be bought and sold. Is it fitting that items of equally lovable and human buildings should be gradually lost until there shall come a time when chance features of earlier drawings must give us our sole idea of many of the everyday things of still earlier ages when individual handwork and not mass production was the vogue?
The purpose of these remarks is twofold. Firstly, to plead with architects, builders or owners concerned with cottage alterations to make the strongest endeavour to maintain and preserve such items as those enumerated above, either in their original positions or in new positions about their original structures. A plain tapering strap hinge forged from an iron bar
is a more interesting object than a cheap stamped and japanned cross-garnet, and will probably outlast it also. An old ledged door may be too low to meet modern needs as a room door, but can often be preserved as access to a cupboard. Old tie-ends forged into date-figures or initials, or merely into simple scrolls, are worth replacing, even though a bulging wall be rebuilt or covered.
Secondly, I want to see more common things preserved in our local museums and a less restricted standard of age adopted. A commendable practice of showing complete rooms housing contemporary furniture has, of late years, been introduced into museums — Norwich Castle, for instance, contains one or two such — but it is, generally speaking, the ornate specimens which are represented, with ˮarchitectural style” very much to the fore. Where a strongly marked local manner exists, as, for instance, in East Anglia, Kent, Wiltshire, Devon and West Somerset, Yorkshire or the Cotswolds, it would not be beyond the bounds of practicability to arrange, while it is yet possible, for the preservation intact of a good typical everyday dwelling in which could be gathered specimens of the cottage furniture and domestic equipment of the district. Such a dwelling should be occupied but open to inspection during stated hours, very much as are the homes of some departed notabilities. Caretaking such a place would not be an onerous job, and could fittingly devolve upon an old-age pensioner of the picturesque “oldest
inhabitant” type, who would add local colour and derive amusement, and I feel sure that such a scheme would be quite inexpensive — almost self-supporting, in fact. The important thing is to save a few of the humbler dwellings of earlier ages while any yet exist. I commend this proposal to the notice of the Royal Society of Arts in connection with their Ancient Cottages Preservation movement. Were it not inexpedient to do so, I would even indicate typical villages, as yet unspoilt, much more worthy of preservation intact and inhabited than many a patch of scenery which has attracted public clamour and subscriptions.
(Concluded)
ALLEGORICAL GROUP, AFRICA HOUSE, KINGSWAY. Benjamin Clemens, Sculptor.
By Edwin Gunn, A. R. I. B. A.
Miscellaneous Fittings. — In the course of the repair and improvement of any old building it is common to encounter a few survivals of the work of village craftsmen for which a use has not been provided in the remodelling, and a steady wastage of such details is constantly going on. In the case of manor houses, granges, inns and dwellings above the farmhouse or cottage standards, such articles are commonly preserved, or if they rise to the level of “fine specimens” may even find space in museums or private collections, but the cottage products more often get to the scrap heap. The kind of things I have in mind are doors of the moulded and ledged types, illustrated by Mr. Nathaniel Lloyd in his craftsmanship series in this paper, internal boarded partitions on similar principles, old smith-made strap hinges, latches, tieends, casement turns and so forth, newel posts and stair balustrades, dressers, cupboards, spit and gunracks, right up to some of the simple cast-iron grates and wood mantels of the earlier years of last century.
There is always interest and naivete, and often character, about these simple everyday things. We have seen once-despised farmhouse and cottage furniture attain to appreciation and value as antique,
and it is right that it should be so. We may admire the tour de force of the advanced craftsman — the museum piece, fit mainly to be looked at; but we love the everyday product of his humbler contemporary, made to be used by men and women like ourselves. Furniture survives because it is portable and can be bought and sold. Is it fitting that items of equally lovable and human buildings should be gradually lost until there shall come a time when chance features of earlier drawings must give us our sole idea of many of the everyday things of still earlier ages when individual handwork and not mass production was the vogue?
The purpose of these remarks is twofold. Firstly, to plead with architects, builders or owners concerned with cottage alterations to make the strongest endeavour to maintain and preserve such items as those enumerated above, either in their original positions or in new positions about their original structures. A plain tapering strap hinge forged from an iron bar
is a more interesting object than a cheap stamped and japanned cross-garnet, and will probably outlast it also. An old ledged door may be too low to meet modern needs as a room door, but can often be preserved as access to a cupboard. Old tie-ends forged into date-figures or initials, or merely into simple scrolls, are worth replacing, even though a bulging wall be rebuilt or covered.
Secondly, I want to see more common things preserved in our local museums and a less restricted standard of age adopted. A commendable practice of showing complete rooms housing contemporary furniture has, of late years, been introduced into museums — Norwich Castle, for instance, contains one or two such — but it is, generally speaking, the ornate specimens which are represented, with ˮarchitectural style” very much to the fore. Where a strongly marked local manner exists, as, for instance, in East Anglia, Kent, Wiltshire, Devon and West Somerset, Yorkshire or the Cotswolds, it would not be beyond the bounds of practicability to arrange, while it is yet possible, for the preservation intact of a good typical everyday dwelling in which could be gathered specimens of the cottage furniture and domestic equipment of the district. Such a dwelling should be occupied but open to inspection during stated hours, very much as are the homes of some departed notabilities. Caretaking such a place would not be an onerous job, and could fittingly devolve upon an old-age pensioner of the picturesque “oldest
inhabitant” type, who would add local colour and derive amusement, and I feel sure that such a scheme would be quite inexpensive — almost self-supporting, in fact. The important thing is to save a few of the humbler dwellings of earlier ages while any yet exist. I commend this proposal to the notice of the Royal Society of Arts in connection with their Ancient Cottages Preservation movement. Were it not inexpedient to do so, I would even indicate typical villages, as yet unspoilt, much more worthy of preservation intact and inhabited than many a patch of scenery which has attracted public clamour and subscriptions.
(Concluded)
ALLEGORICAL GROUP, AFRICA HOUSE, KINGSWAY. Benjamin Clemens, Sculptor.