The Rural Homes of England 
HOUSES ROOFED WITH STONE 
From a photograph by Clifton Johnson 
wide chimney, and in part to the character 
of the floors, and the general looseness of 
doors and windows. 
The reading habit is not nearly as common 
in rural England as in rural America, and 
the young people loiter much about the 
streets during the evening while the men re¬ 
sort to the inns, and the women spend consid¬ 
erable time at the hour of dusk visiting each 
other at their gates. Hence lamps and can¬ 
dles are not lighted very early. Except when 
the weather is quite sharp the house doors 
are allowed to stand ajar, and as one walks 
along a village street of an evening he has 
continual glimpses of red flames flickering 
in the kitchen grates and brightening up in 
a dim uncertain way the gloomy 
rooms. Perhaps the flames may 
reveal a group of children at 
their play, or one or two of their 
elders still busy with the house¬ 
hold work or possibly sitting in 
contemplative rest by the hearth. 
Firelight is always beautiful and 
companionable. There is more 
economy and protection against 
cold in a stove, but the stove 
entirely lacks poetic charm. 
in the more out-of-the-way 
villages are many farmhouse 
kitchens that have only the old 
fireplaces of a century ago. 
These fireplaces have not even 
been modernized with the half¬ 
way innovation of a grate, and 
all the cooking and brewing and 
baking is done in the most 
primitive way. The black¬ 
mouthed chimney, the crane and 
andirons, the brick oven and the 
bread peel are still very far from 
being legendary in England. 
Often the old kitchens are dec¬ 
orated with numerous hams and 
strips of bacon that either are 
hung from nails along the walls 
or laid on a rack suspended from 
the ceiling. This meat has pre¬ 
viously been cured in the smoke 
of the chimney. Very likely, if 
you look up the chimney, you 
will see some dark masses still 
in process suspended there. 
The kitchen is the family living-room. 
In it the members of the household work, 
eat and visit. When the family is small 
they have their meals on a little round table 
drawn up near the fireplace. In the case of 
a farmer’s family of goodly proportions they 
use instead a table in the corner of the room 
as massive and long as a carpenter’s bench. 
Behind it is a continuous seat against the wall, 
and in front of it a long plank set on widely 
slanting legs. A family group gathered for 
a meal at such a table looks as antique as if 
it had come to life out of the middle ages. 
One almost inevitable piece of furniture 
in the English kitchen is an ample dresser 
containing a display of colored earthenware. 
A COUNTRY MANSION 
From a photograph by Clifton Johnson 
204 
