338 Notes on Country Seats and Gardens. 



any kind of alteration in the dwellings and gardens of country 

 labourers can hardly fail to be an improvement, both with refer- 

 ence to the occupiers and to the country at large. 



The great value of Mr. Gregory's improvements in the village 

 of Flarlaxton is, that all the leading features have some kind of 

 relation to use, and are, in fact, to be considered more as parts 

 added to the very plainest cottages, in order to render them 

 complete, than as ornaments put on to render them beautiful. 

 All the cottages were built by Mr. Gregory's predecessor in the 

 plainest possible style, but fortunately substantial and comfort- 

 able, and two stories high ; some of them single, and some 

 of them double, and almost all of them built of stone some 

 yards back from the street, and surrounded by ample gardens. 

 In improving them, Mr. Gregory would appear to have been 

 guided by the following considerations : — 



1 . To hesto'w the 'principal expense on the main features^ such 

 as the porch, the chimney tops, and the gardens. Almost all the 

 cottages have porches, some projecting from the walls, and 

 others forming recesses : the latter have sometimes open places 

 like loggias over them ; and the former, sometimes roofs in the 

 usual manner, sometimes balconies, and occasionally small rooms 

 Y^ith gable- ends, or pavilion roofs, according to the style. The 

 greatest attention has been paid to the chimney tops, which are 

 in some cases of brick, and in others of stone ; sometimes of 

 English domestic Gothic, at other times local English, such as 

 those common in the neighbourhood of the Lakes or in Derby- 

 shire, &c. : Italian, French, or Swiss chimney tops of different 

 kinds also occur. The gable ends are finished with crow steps, 

 in the Belgian and Scotch style in some cases, with Gothic 

 parapets in others ; and various descriptions of bargeboards are 

 used, wherever the roof projects over the end walls. Porches, 

 cornices of brick or stone, ornamental cornice boards, or stone 

 or wooden brackets, are also introduced in front, as supports or 

 ornaments to the roof. Every garden has been laid out and 

 planted by Mr. Gregory's head gardener; creepers and climbers 

 being introduced in proper places, in such a manner as that no 

 two gardens are planted with the same climbers. 



2. Always to have some architectural feature in or about the 

 garden, as well as on the cottage. For example; almost every 

 garden here has its draw-well, and each of these wells is ren- 

 dered architectural, and ornamented in a different way. All the 

 wells are surrounded by parapets, either circular, square, of open- 

 work, or solid. Some are covered with roofs supported by 

 carpentry ; others with roofs supported by stones, round or 

 square ; some are in the form of stone cupolas : in some, the 

 water is raised by buckets suspended from a picturesque archi- 

 tectural appendage ; in others, it is raised by pumps attached to 



