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XXVI. — On the Construction of Cottages. 
By the Rev. Copinger Hill. 
PRIZE ESSAY. 
I TAKE for granted that the Society desires to encourage the erec- 
tion of cottages, in which due regard to the comforts of light, 
space, warmth, ventilation, and freedom from damp, are made to 
coincide with a fair interest on capital expended. 
Cottages are too much in the hands of speculators, who exact 
an exorbitant rent for very inferior accommodation. The owners 
of estates are deterred from erecting them by dread of the ex- 
pense : feeling that they cannot demand and take from a poor 
man such a rent as would repay them for their outlay. If I should 
succeed in inducing gentlemen of landed property (by pointing 
out an economical mode of building comfortable cottages) to turn 
their attention to the subject, I shall be amply repaid for the 
trouble of furnishing the required information. Now being my- 
self owner of a considerable number of rural cottages, rented on 
fair terms, I am able to say. from the experience of several years, 
that the rents are paid with as much regularity as the Govern- 
ment dividends ; and that the total loss upon twenty-five cottages 
in twelve years amounts to less than '20*'. : so that persons need 
not entertain any dislike to this description of investment, from 
the difficulty of collecting the rents; and I trust, by the time I 
have finished this article, they will be also fully assured that 
cottage building is not altogether an unprofitable investment of 
capital. 
I have prepared estimates, item bv item, for various kinds of 
cottages : such as walls of brick, or stud-work plastered on both 
sides ; roofs of sawn timber, and slate or tile ; cast-iron window- 
casements, &c. ; but upon reconsideration I abandon all of them 
but two, which are especially suitable to rural purposes. Of these 
I shall give a detailed account, so that gentlemen may be their 
own architects, employing only journeymen tradesmen, and pur- 
chasing their materials at the usual retail price : I do not mean 
the price at which they may be got by the trade, but that at which 
any person may buy them without indulgence from the wholesale 
dealer. 
The space I consider necessary for the accommodation of a 
rural labourer's family is — a dwelling-room, about 13 feet square; 
a pantry or cellar, about 8 feet by 13, including the stairs and a 
closet under them ; and two bed-rooms over these. 
The outer door should open into the dwelling-room, instead 
of making the pantry a sort of entrance-hall, as some recom- 
mend. 
