442 Recollections of a Tow- made in Mai/, 1839, 



Fig. 106. shows a vertical profile of fig. 107., i being the guide-bar, and/c the 

 door. 



Fig. 107., of half the proper size, shows the manner in which the guide-bar 

 g is attached to the door h, the fitting not being tight. 



It is to be observed that both the straight and curved grooves require a sort 

 of cover or guide-bar all the length of the groove, placed so as to allow the 

 hook of the stay or propping bar to be lifted out of the hole, but not out of 

 the groove. In the straight groove {fig. 103. e f), a piece of wood 1* by 2| in. 

 does very well for the cover ; but in the curved groove a wrought or cast iron 

 cover has been used, and the little tubes or projections marked c c mfig. 101. 

 are cast on the groove to fasten the wooden covers to securely. 



Gates and doors for back sheds, and for various departments connected 

 with the kitchen-garden and offices of an establishment, may be most advan- 

 tageously formed with staybars, instead of locks, bolts, or hooked or other 

 fastenings. In rural architecture, the use of these staybars is calculated to be 

 still more extensively useful than in gardening. 



Lodge Gate Fastening. — In this contrivance the lodge gates, when in one 

 piece, or single, as the technical term is, are commonly hung at the side farthest 

 from the lodge, with a view, it may be supposed, of bringing the latch as near 

 the person who comes out from the lodge to open the gate as possible. But it 

 must be recollected, that after the latch is lifted, the operator (who is frequently 

 an old person) must walk across the road, perhaps in the night when it is dark, 

 or during rain or snow, and he or she (for this operation is generally per- 

 formed by the female occupant of the lodge) must wait on the opposite side 

 " gate in hand," till the carriage has passed through. Sometimes, also, when 

 the horses are impatient in the daytime, or when it is dark at night, the gate 

 opener, while crossing the road before the horses' heads, is liable to be knocked 

 down by them, or by the pole of the carriage. These and other inconve- 

 niences attending this mode of opening gates are avoided by hanging the gate 

 on the side next the lodge, and by having a long horizontal rod, reaching from the 

 latch to about the middle of the gate. The gate opener advances only half 

 across the road, pulls the rod to raise the latch, and walks a few steps back- 

 wards, opening the gate to its full width, and is at the same time protected by it. 

 The application of the rod, by which the gate is to be opened, depends on the 

 kind of fastening used. One of the simplest is, where the latch is retained 

 in its place by a spring ; and, the rod being used to pull it back so as to open 

 the gate, when the gate is again shut the latch returns to its place of itself. 

 The rod may either be conducted along the top, or the side of the upper 

 bar of the gate, or under, or along one side of a bar from three to four feet 

 from the ground. 



Fig. 108. shows the mode adopted at Bridge Hill and Allestree, in which a 

 is the latch supported on a fulcrum at b, operated on by the S lever c, by means 



108 



of the rod d, and the handle e. This handle serves both for pulling the rod 

 backwards toward the hinges, so as to raise the latch, and for pulling the gate 

 towards the operator, so as to open it by his walking a few steps backwards. 



Cast-iron Heads or Hanging Styles to Gates, and Wrought-Iron Rods as diagonal 

 Braces, are common in field and other gates in this neighbourhood. The cast- 

 iron hanging styles have mortise holes for the ends of the wooden bars, and 

 these are made fast in a very simple but effective mode, which consists in having 



