HOUSES AND GARDENS 



bay-window with its plate-glass, lace curtains, Venetian blinds, and other 

 upholsteries ? Were it not better done to place the kitchen premises here, and 

 thus gain the full breadth of the garden at the back, and make there the 

 principal room, with its bay-window overlooking a sunny garden, thus reducing 

 to a minimum the line of communication between the kitchen and the road, 

 and obviating at once all that traffic across the house which the position of 

 the kitchen premises at the back usually entails ? 



The conception of the house, which primarily consists, as I have endeavoured 

 to show it should consist, of one good-sized living-room or hall, makes the 

 position and outlook of this room a fundamental question. There the family 

 live, and there, at any rate, they must have sunlight, a pleasant outlook, and 

 cheerful surroundings. 



In the ordinary terrace house there is no such dominating room for the 

 family use. The principal apartment overlooking the road is usually preserved 

 for visitors, and a little dining-room at the back is badly lighted by a window 

 blocked by kitchen premises which leave only a narrow strip of ground 

 available for a garden. 



If you ask me where the family live I cannot tell you, but, judging from 

 the unlighted rows of front bay-windows, one may at least conclude that they 

 support existence somewhere in the back, and reserve their front apartment to 

 display all those evidences of advance in modern domestic furnishings on 

 which we congratulate ourselves nowadays. 



If, however, the family life is centralised in one large apartment, the posi- 

 tion of this apartment, in its relation to the road, would vary according to 

 aspect, while the general tendency of the occupants of houses in terraces to 

 live at the back, where freedom from dust and noise and an outlook on to a 

 private garden may be enjoyed, suggests the advisability of a complete 

 reversal, wherever possible, of the present scheme for the terrace house 

 described in the phrase " Queen Anne in front and Mary Ann at the back," 

 a reversal which would place the kitchen premises adjacent to the road and the 

 sitting-rooms overlooking a garden at the back. 



In such cases the house with its back to the road may be placed as close to 

 it as possible without the usual disadvantages of such a position. In other 

 cases, where considerations of aspect suggest that the principal sitting-room 

 should be placed towards the road, it would be better for the houses to be set 

 well back. 



In the case of roads which run east and west, it would be best if these 

 divided each single set of plots, so that in all the house would face south. 

 In roads which run north and south, the question of aspect will have less 

 influence on the plan. Thus one is brought to consider the question of 

 laying out an estate, not entirely with a view of convenience for traffic, but 

 to allow the best conditions for the individual house, and where terraces are 

 introduced it is desirable that these should run east and west, and, instead 

 of being planned with houses facing the street on both sides, should have 

 houses close up to the road on the north side and gardens on the south. 



Special local conditions must necessarily modify such arrangements in 

 98 



