HOUSES AND GARDENS 



the rest of the room may be, this character as it approaches the fire should 

 merge into a more serviceable quality. It has already been urged that the 

 house should contain at least one good-sized central room, and it is no less 

 important that this room should have a fireplace broadly designed to dominate 

 the scheme, and form, as it were, the centre of a solar system to which the 

 lesser fires are duly subordinated. 



The whole question of the occupation of rooms is largely a question of 

 fires. In the cottage the front parlour is not used, mainly because the house- 

 hold is a " one-fire " household, and that one fire must necessarily be in the 

 kitchen. Its logical expression in a plan would show a large kitchen as the 

 house plan, with a parlour reduced to the small dimensions its limited 

 functions suggest. Again, a two-fire household implies fires in the kitchen 

 and in the dining-room, and should be expressed in a large dining- 

 hall as the central feature, or at least the dining-room should form a recess in 

 the houseplace. In larger houses these limitations do not occur, but even 

 here it is desirable that the focus and centre of the house should be expressed 

 by the large fireplace in the large hall. In considering the house thus as a 

 winter dwelling, I am assuming those conditions which test its real qualities. 

 The main functions of a house is that it affords a retreat from the cold or a 

 shelter from the rain. In fine warm weather its occupation is gone, and its 

 tenants should chiefly live, if not in the garden, at least in an open verandah. 

 In the English climate the apartments of the house can be quite adequately 

 heated by means of open fires alone in houses of average size ; but in America, 

 and on the continent, some more effectual means of heating is required. In 

 America, the English tradition of the open fire is still maintained in connection 

 with artificial heating ; but on the continent the fire is usually interred in a 

 porcelain tomb, and the house is robbed of one of its greatest charms the 

 ruddy glow of the open fire. 



While, however, the central houseplace should have its large fireplace, in 

 a house which is also artificially heated, where the remaining rooms are small, 

 it is not always necessary to follow the English tradition of a fireplace to each 

 room, and apartments used for writing or sleeping may be heated merely by 

 artificial means. This is largely a matter of individual taste, but in a house of 

 small size, containing only the kitchen and hall flues in one chimney stack, 

 the cost of building extra chimneys to its smaller rooms might be devoted to 

 artificial heating. 



Some such compromise would form a reasonable basis for a modern plan, 

 and would save a certain amount of lighting fires and cleaning grates. 

 Where fireplaces are introduced in the various specialised rooms their position 

 and treatment should be modified accordingly, and in the bedroom the fire- 

 place may be of modest dimensions and simple treatment. 



In selecting the position for a fireplace in the room, it is important that 

 it should be placed in relation to doors so that it is not subjected to cross- 

 draughts, and in relation to windows so that it is well lighted. 



In the four small sketches shown here, the arrangement shown in No. I is 

 the best, as the fireplace is free from draughts and lighted from the side. If, 

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