X 



SMALLER HOUSES, TOWN HOUSES, 

 EXTERIOR FEATURES 



Ix the large houses which have been described in the preceding 

 chapters, it has been impossible to avoid passing a certain 

 amount of adverse criticism upon the manner in which comfort 

 and convenience were often sacrificed to the claims of fine archi- 

 tecture, as the term was understood during the eighteenth century. 

 When we turn to the smaller houses this drawback is much less 

 in evidence ; not because better architects were employed, for 

 doubtless the unknown designers of these smaller buildings 

 would have sinned equally with their more famous brethren, had 

 the opportunity to do so come their way, but because the 

 occasion demanded no great display, and there was no money 

 wherewith to make it. Nothing more was wanted than a hand- 

 some-looking house with rooms of suitable size and number. It 

 was very seldom that any great ingenuity was required of the 

 designers. Two, three, or in the larger houses, four sitting- 

 rooms, a hall and staircase, a kitchen, back kitchen, and pantries 

 usually completed the accommodation of the ground floor ; the 

 floor above was occupied by bedrooms, which, if insufficient, 

 were supplemented by others in the attic. There were no bath- 

 rooms, cloak-rooms, or other sanitary conveniences ; it was not 

 necessary to provide a fireplace to each room. The problems of 

 design were therefore much simpler than those of the present 

 day. There was no group of small rooms requiring a con- 

 venient yet inconspicuous situation : there was no need to 

 struggle with single flues from isolated bedrooms, which could 

 not be led to the main stacks ; this difficulty was met by 

 leaving the rooms without a fireplace. Nothing is commoner in 

 old houses than to find two or perhaps three chimney-stacks, the 

 position of which is determined by that of the sitting-rooms and 

 kitchen, and to find that the bedrooms adjoining these stacks 



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