186 



On Labourers" Cottages. 



want of separate bed-rooms for grown-up boys and girls ; and, 

 secondly, that the practice of taking in lodgers had led to still 

 further evils. The improved methods of cultivation, extensive 

 draining, and general improvement in husbandry (requiring addi- 

 tional hands) that are going on, more or less, in all parts of the 

 country, and the breaking up of inferior grass-lands, and convert- 

 ing woodland into tillage (especially since the passing of the 

 Tithe Commutation Act), by giving work to many more labourers 

 than were formerly employed, have caused a proportionate aug- 

 mentation of their number, and, consequently, an increased want 

 of cottage accommodation. To meet this increased want, and at 

 the same time to improve the habitations of the labourers, I de- 

 termined to rebuild the worst of my cottages, and to add to their 

 number in those parts of my estate in which it appeared neces- 

 sary to do so. I therefore directed my surveyor to prepare a 

 series of plans of cottages suitable for families of different sizes 

 and descriptions, sufficient to satisfy the reasonable wants of the 

 labourers and their families, and to be so constructed as that 

 (avoiding all needless expense) the cottages should be substantial, 

 and not subject to premature decay, or likely to require costly 

 repair. 



The experience obtained in erecting the new cottages already 

 built on my estate has enabled my surveyor to ascertain the quan- 

 tities of each kind of material required for the construction, sepa- 

 rately, of the cottages shown in these plans ; and in the hope that 

 this information may be useful to others, I have directed those 

 quantities to be put in detail upon the plans. I have deemed it 

 best not to have the prices added, because prices vary in different 

 localities, and therefore to furnish the prices of one locality would 

 be useless, and might mislead. The quantities being given, it 

 will be easy to add the prices they bear in other places in which 

 the erection of cottages according to those plans may be desired. 



As the cottages of many landed proprietors may be, and pro- 

 bably are, in a state similar to my own, it appears to me that the 

 information, founded on actual experience, which I have obtained 

 on the subject of cottage-building, and which is embodied in 

 these plans, may be acceptable and generally useful. 



Cottage-building (except to a cottage speculator who exacts 

 immoderate rents for scanty and defective habitations) is, we all 

 know, a bad investment of money ; but this is not the light in 

 which such a subject should be viewed by landlords, from whom 

 it is, surely, not too much to expect that, while they are building 

 and improving farm-houses, homesteads, and cattle-sheds, they 

 will, also, build and improve dwellings for their labourers in 

 sufficient number to meet the improved and improving cultivation 

 of the land. 



