406 General Restdts of' a Gardening Tour • — 



style of architectural ornament, but even of an inferior mate- 

 rial. Now, as, in the country, all the sides of a house are alike 

 seen, or nearly so, it is obvious that, as they belong to the 

 same object, they ourrht to be of the same material, and in the 

 same style. This fault, like the preceding one, is easily traced 

 to street buildings : and too many villas might be readily ima- 

 gined to be only slices taken from streets. Every detached 

 house in the country ought to bear examination on all sides. 



A third great fault in villas is the mismanagement of the 

 chimney-tops : there is not one villa in ten that is not dis- 

 figured by them ; whereas, being parts essential to every 

 dwelling-house, they might always be rendered agreeable 

 objects. Any attempt to conceal chimneys altogether, in a 

 country where fires are required during three parts of the 

 year, is in bad taste. All additions in the way of chimney- 

 pots, not contemplated in the original design of the edifice, 

 will generally be found to disfigure it. The prevalent evils of 

 smoky chimneys should always, if possible, be cured by an 

 alteration in the throat of the chimney below, by lining the 

 flue in part, or wholly, with metal ; or, if an exterior addition 

 in height must be made, it is much better to take down and 

 rebuild higher, or on a different plan, always maintaining 

 architectural forms. In general, whatever is put on the out- 

 side of a chimney or stack of chimneys, to prevent smoking, 

 may be built in, or concealed by architectural forms, instead 

 of being set on. Few exterior appearances convey the idea 

 of a house being comfortable within, so much as that of hand- 

 some architectural chimney-tops, delivering their smoke with- 

 out the aid of pots, or earthenware, or iron appendages of 

 any description.* Whoever is of our mind, and intends to 

 build a villa, ought to make it a condition absolute with his 

 architect or builder that there shall be no chimney-pots. This 

 very condition will force the architect to design bold architec- 

 tural chimneys, such as those used in the days of Inigo Jones, 

 and other architects of that age ; and he will always take care 



* The new part of the palace at Chatsworth has some scores of copper 

 tubes upwards of 6 ft. high, and sufficiently large, as we are told, to let a 

 boy climb into them. They are painted black, and, to our eye, are quite 

 intolerable. We met with no one who could inform us whether Hiort's 

 cylindrical brick flues, used at Buckingham Palace, which are swept without 

 the aid of boys, and are in general an effectual preventive of smoking, have 

 been used. We would try them, or Seth Smith's metallic linings ; but, 

 before trying either, we would thrust the tubes down the flues. Supposing 

 neither of these three plans to succeed, we would enclose the tubes in ma- 

 sonry, thus raising the chimneys 6 ft. or 7 ft. If the flues draw now, in 

 consequence of these tubes, they would draw much better when the influ- 

 ence of the external atmosphere was excluded from them. 



