House and Garden 
MANOR FARM, BEANACRE 
at symmetry in the front of Restoration House, 
Rochester, which is celebrated as the “Satis House” 
of Dickens’s Great Expectations. The peculiar charm 
of this old house is mainly due to its irregularity and 
its quaint windows with their white painted wooden 
frames and mullions which contrast so pleasantly 
with the crumbling brickwork and the luxuriant 
draperies of ivy. 
A fine example of the Carolean manor-house is 
seen in Moyles Court. Here again we have a de¬ 
lightful combination of vine-grown, red brick walls 
and white wooden window frames. The width of 
the latter as well as the size of the brick quoins and 
the chimneys serve to emphasize the sturdy char¬ 
acter of the house. Its high pitched, hipped roof 
and dormers are very effective. 
There is none of the cold and 
dull formality of the later Renais¬ 
sance about it and it represents 
a type of English domestic archi¬ 
tecture most worthy of study 
and capable of development. 
Altogether it is so charming that 
one does not feel inclined to crit¬ 
icise it for being set so low on the 
ground without a visible base of 
any kind. This is a failing com¬ 
mon to most old English houses 
and in some of the simpler, 
more picturesque kind it con¬ 
tributes much to their attract¬ 
iveness. A house that is set low 
on the ground certainly has an 
appearance of more intimate 
relationship with its surround¬ 
ings than when a considerable 
flight of steps has to be climbed 
to reach the ground floor. It 
is better, however, on the 
score of hygiene, if of nothing 
else, to have the floor at least 
a step or two above the level 
of the ground and it is proba¬ 
ble that these old houses 
were built so; their present 
condition being due to several 
centuries of gradual settling 
or the accumulation of soil 
about them as in the ruins 
of ancient cities. 
Very different are these 
old houses from some of our 
modern suburban abomina¬ 
tions which seem to have no 
closer relation to their sur¬ 
roundings than would a Pull¬ 
man car or a newly painted 
piece of machinery. 
The effect of age on the latter cannot be said to 
be improving. But the old English houses were 
built solidly of good rough materials that belong 
out of doors, so that while vines have clothed 
their walls and the green lawns about them have 
grown smoother and thicker, the passing of the 
centuries has served to tone them down and bring 
them into closer harmony with nature. With 
their garden walls and hedges, they almost seem to 
have grown in their places as did the great trees 
which stand near-by. There is nothing of the un¬ 
easy look of the parvenu about them. They have 
an air of calm and dignified repose; the spirit of 
ancient peace seems to rest upon them and all 
their surroundings. 
CARDEN HAEL, CHESHIRE-GARDEN FRONT 
200 
