130 JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



ON THE CONSTRUCTION OF A VERANDAH. 



By THE Rev. W. Wilks, M.A. 



(Vicar of Shirley, Surrey ; Secretary R.H.S.) 



In the year 1B98 an illustration of my little country vicarage appeared 

 in that most delightful of all weekly papers, Country Life ; and 

 immediately afterwards I began to receive enquiries on all sides, " How 

 do you manage to get your house covered with creepers although you have 

 a verandah ? " The number of such enquiries, together with a few as 

 to why " the width of the openings is not always the same," and so on, 

 induced me to promise one or two Fellows of the Society that I would 

 write them full particulars. 



Verandahs are, I believe, very much more common in America, 

 Australia, and the Cape than they are in England, but with this differ- 

 ence, that there they are for coolness; whereas in England, I think, 

 they should be regarded more as shelters, enabling us to sit out of doors 

 in spring and autumn — sometimes quite into the winter, and often 

 till late at night — rather than during the very height of a hot 

 summer's day. In England, as a rule, we want to lengthen out our 

 summers, both at their beginning and their ending, rather than to lessen 

 the sultriness of a very seldom occurring over-hot day, on which rare 

 occasions a shady tree is more suitable than a verandah. There seems to 

 me, therefore, to be this essential difference between a verandah in a hot 

 country and in England — the one is for coolness, the other for shelter, I 

 might almost say for warmth. I would never therefore recommend a 

 verandah on the north side of a house nor on the east. It should always 

 run round the south and west sides — round both, mark you — so that when 

 a cold wind happens to set along one side you may bask in the sun upon 

 the other. For the same reason the east end of the south side and the 

 north end of the west side should always be closed in with glass. How 

 useless a verandah is on the north side of a house I can testify from 

 experience, as my vicarage has one, but I have never once sat under it in 

 twenty years ! and only retain it for appearance sake, as it masks an ugly 

 wall. 



Having fixed on the site, the next point is to fix on the material to 

 use in building. And let me very strongly advise wood, not iron. Iron is 

 bitterly cold in winter and very hot in summer. Many a creeper is killed 

 by the extra intensity of the cold in winter on the metal, or by being 

 literally roasted on one of our very few hot days in summer, which can 

 occasionally be exceedingly hot. Iron, too, beautiful as it is in wrought- 

 iron gates and hanging lamps, and even knockers, is not a suitable 

 material for verandahs. The Goddess Flora altogether forbids any 

 attempt at ornamental ironwork in her domains beyond the aforesaid 

 gates and railings, where such things are needed. And oh ! eschew, 

 eschew an iron roof above all other things, however ornamentally (?) it 



