CHAPTER X. 



The four features which it is proposed to consider in this Chapter, Verandahs, 

 Summer-houses, Pergolas, and Bridges, which, as architectural adornments fulfilling a 

 practical as well as an aesthetic function, are closely related both in planning and effect, 

 may be considered as details in garden equipment. 



In the past, unfortunately, this very fact has been made sufficient excuse for treating 

 them as extra embellishments apart from the general scheme, and arbours and pergolas 

 have been dotted about without reference to their surroundings in a manner which has, 

 in many instances, brought the architectural efforts of the garden designer into disrepute. 

 They are details certainly, but in garden architecture, as in every art or science, it 

 is the details which make or mar the final result, and no feature of garden equipment 

 can be considered as a thing apart, but all must be made to harmonize, each item fit- 

 ting naturally and inevitably into its proper place and in keeping with its surroundings. 



If they are ungainly or disproportionate, their ornamentation coarse, their construc- 

 tion meretricious or their placing crude, persons of education and taste will be unfavour- 

 ably disposed towards the whole scheme of design. If such things as ricketty wood 

 or spidery cast-iron verandahs, or would-be rustic summer-houses, with shiny varnish and 

 cheap stained glass, are placed in front of otherwise dignified residences, breaking up the 

 alignment and destroying all breadth of treatment; or rustic bridges, heavy in design 

 and insecure looking, are made to span a somewhat imaginary stream, the whole effect 

 must be trivial. 



The steadily increasing love of fresh air and an out-of-door life which has been so 

 pronounced in recent years in this country, makes a deeply recessed verandah or colonnade 

 on the South front of the house almost a necessity. Most domestic architects, when 

 designing a house to-day, would incorporate this feature into their plans and make it an 

 integral and harmonious part of their design, and in country houses, and especially those 

 which are to be used as summer residences only, there is even a tendency to transform 

 the verandah into a large square open-air dining room, occupying the whole of the ground 

 floor area of a gable, the upper rooms being entirely supported on pillars on three sides. 

 Such an arrangement would need very careful backing up by the garden architect if 

 it is to be a success, not only on account of the exceptional architectural treatment 

 involved, but also to give it shelter and privacy. 



In the ordinary verandah placed in front of and approached from the entertaining 

 rooms, the main practical question to be faced is that of providing sufficient light to the 



Verandahs. 



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