THE OLD ENGLAND OF COACHING DAYS 337 



behind, the massive granite churches, houses and 

 cottages astonished the new-comer to those parts. 

 No one coukl buikl Avith other than local materials 

 in those days. The material might he, like the 

 granite, stubborn and difficult, and expensive to 

 work, but it would have been still more expensive 

 to bring other materials to the spot, and so the 

 local men worked on their local stone, and in 

 course of time acquired that peculiar mastery 

 of it and that way of expressing themselves 

 which originated that " local style " whose secret 

 is so ardently sought by modern architectural 

 students. You cannot transplant the old style 

 of a locality. Like the wilding plucked from its 

 native hedgerow, it dies, or is cultivated into 

 something other than its original old sweet self 

 and becomes artificial. Cynic circumstance has 

 so decreed it that, while these ancient local 

 growths have in modern times been copied in 

 London and the great towns, the rural neigh- 

 bourhoods have been cursed with an ambition 

 to copy London, while everywhere cheap red 

 brick is ousting the native stone, flint, or wood. 

 When the fashionables travelled down by 

 coach to Bath, one might safely have offered a 

 prize for every brick house to be found there, 

 for Bath was, and is, l3uilt of the local oolite 

 known as " Bath stone." The prize would never 

 have been claimed ; but something like a modern 

 miracle is now haj^pening, for even at Bath red 

 brick has underbid the native stone and gained 

 an entrance. 



VOL. II. 22 



