l>ITTr.E HUCKF.OW : ITS CUSTOMS AND Ol.l) HOUSKS. 53 



surrounded by milk benches, and a house-place, in which is a 

 wooden staircase later in date than the rest of the building. 

 Over the fireplace is the date 1723 (fig. 1); but the building 

 is older than that, and the fireplace was put there when 

 the original house was divided. On the upper floor are two 

 bedrooms, and there has been a fireplace in the room over 

 the house-place (fig. i), the fireplaces of both rooms being 

 served by the same chimney. The owner of this remarkable 

 farmhouse has a shippon, or cow-house, big enough to hold 

 four cows, about seventy yards off on the other side of the 

 green, with a pigsty and privy annexed, but no land adjoining 

 these outbuildings. He has also a little more than five acres 

 of old enclosure in different parts of the township, one of the 

 fields containing " lenches," and five or six acres which were 

 formerly common land, and allotted in respect of rights of 

 common. 



If we ask ourselves the question how it came to i:)ass that 

 a farmhouse should be thus inconveniently jammed in between 

 other men's land and houses, the answer is not far to seek. 

 It was once a frequent thing for a man to build his house on 

 the verge of his neighbour's property, this being done to save 

 expense in making walls. But that is not the main reason 

 why the house marked " A " is a portion of a larger house. 

 The main reason is that when a man died his wife and children, 

 or other representatives, divided his buildings and land piece- 

 meal amongst them, according to his will or the settlement 

 which he had made of it.* In our time, when a division of 

 property is contemplated, the owner settles it on trust for sale, 

 so that the beneficiaries take not actual parts, but shares in 

 the proceeds of sale — a practice which avoids the old and 

 inconvenient method of doling out a bay of a house to the 

 widow and the other bays amongst the children, or otherwise 

 dividing the property into actual parts. 



The scullery and pantry of the house marked " A " are newer 



* We must not forget that the old rule was to divide the estates of 

 intestates equally. 



