Book III. 



USEFUL DECORATIVE BUILDINGS. 



549 



304 



framed timber, filled up with brick-work, with oaken door and window-frames ; and the 

 third order of solid brick, with stone door and window-frames, and Gothic mouldings 

 and labels. There is a very pleasing assemblage of picturesque cottages, mostly thatched, 

 erected on the grounds at Blaze Castle, near Bristol. They are not only varied in form, 

 for which much facility is obtained, by including two, and sometimes three dwellings, in 

 one pile; but their disposition on the ground, and the surface of the ground itself, is 

 varied ; and by the management of the walks and trees, an eyeful of any part seldom 

 contains more than two or three groups ; always one in the fore-ground, and the others 

 in the middle or remote distance. They were designed by Nash. 



1776. The Scotch cottage is, as to architectural style, something between Gothic and 

 Grecian. It is the same with the cottage of France and Flanders, is characterised by 

 high narrow gable-ends, with notched or step-like finishings. The material of the walls, 

 almost always stone ; and of the roof, pantiles or grey schistus slate. 



1777. The Italian cottage is characterised by Grecian lines, and forms bold projections 

 and recesses, as far as a cottage admits of these ; high pantiled roofs of a peculiar con- 

 struction ; the walls white-washed, and in farmers' cottages, especially in Tuscany, often 

 a part of the roof raised as a sort of watchtower. 



1778. The Polish cottage (Jig. 304. ) is formed chiefly of timber, 

 with some plaster and wicker-work to thicken the walls within. 

 The roof is covered with shingles or fir- timber split into pieces 

 of about eighteen inches long, six inches broad, and half an inch 

 thick. The ends are generally upright, not en pavilion, and 

 the roofs projecting. 



1779. The Russian cottage is also built of timber, but of solid 

 logs or trees notched, and let into each other at the angles of 

 the buildings where they intersect. They are roofed as in the 

 Polish cottage, and sometimes highly ornamented at the ends 

 by carved imitations of the sun, moon, stars, &c. protruded 

 from the ends, and protected by the projection of the roof. 



1780. The Sivedish and Danish cottage is built of logs and 

 moss, like the Russian. 



1781. The jmmitive hut, or cabin, varies as to material, according to the country in 

 which it is formed. The rudest description of artificial shelter for man is perhaps 

 that used by the aboriginal inhabitants of Botany Bay, which is a large plate of the 

 bark of a tree bent in the middle, and its two ends stuck in the earth. The African 

 cottage (Jig. 305.) is a low 305 



oblong mud hut, con- 

 structed by the natives as 

 swallows do their nests. 

 (Sir W. Ouseley.) The 

 rudest European hut is 

 generally a cone formed by 

 branches, poles, or young 

 trees, with their ends set 

 in the ground, made to 

 lean against each other at 

 the top, such as are now in 



use in Lapland, (jig. 306.) They are then covered with spray, heath, straw, reeds, 

 or turf. One opening serves the purpose of all others. In countries abounding in 

 noxious reptiles, this is made in the upper part of the roof, and entered by a trap-door, 

 as in Stedman's hut at Surinam, or by a ladder as in the huts of Morocco (Jig. 31 1.) ; 

 but in Europe the entrance is generally made on a level with the floor, as in the huts of 



306 



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