July, 1919 
25 
Watson 
The gambrel roof is apparently a later 
introduction. This type is found at St. 
Anne de Beaiipre 
The French-Canadian house is set according to 
compass and not in conformity with the road 
In the Ottawa valley a type is found in 
which a narrow gallery with deeply pro¬ 
jecting eaves surrounds the house 
the farms into long narrow strips, each with 
its little frontage to the road and the river. 
On each of these a house might be built, and 
so in places the highroad is lined with houses, 
fairly close together and each with its long 
strip behind it. 
The Country Cottage, 
The typical cottage of the country roads and 
villages seems to have been developed from 
the plain, solid houses of the city. It is an 
oblong building, usually without breaks or pro¬ 
jections, with a steep roof and a parapetted 
gable at each end. The walls are a story and 
a half high, from 2' to 3’ thick, built of good 
irregular rubble masonry with larger 
squared stones at the angles only. The 
masonry is almost smothered in mor¬ 
tar, and the walls are often white¬ 
washed. 
The door is usually about the cen¬ 
ter, with the windows more or less 
symmetrical on each side. These are 
casements opening inwards in the true 
French manner, for the English case¬ 
ment, opening out, is not used. The 
frames are set close to the outer face 
of the wall and are finished with a 
wooden surround on the face. This 
is sometimes quite delicately molded, 
more often plain, with a flat gabled 
form at the top. The old windows are 
divided into small square panes by 
wooden glazing bars. Leaded glazing 
must have been used in some of the 
oldest houses, for the well known 
drawing of Champlain’s “habitation” 
shows diamond panes in the windows, 
but the houses, as we have them now, 
all have wooden window bars. 
Shutters and Galleries 
Large buildings have slatted shut¬ 
ters hinged on the outside and folding 
back against the walls, where they are 
held by little “S” catches. If the 
windows are large, the shutters are 
in four leaves, so that either the upper 
or the lower part can be left open for 
light. Painted the usual green, and 
folded back on each side of the win¬ 
dows, these shutters give an unmis¬ 
takably French quality to the build¬ 
ing. In the cottages they are usually 
omitted, and single windows are the 
rule in their stead. 
Very often the main floor is raised some 4' 
above the ground and entered from a gallery 
extending along the front of the house. A 
cellar for food and stores was necessary in the 
farmhouses and could be obtained in this way, 
whilst the gallery is sufficiently high to rise 
above the winter snow level and provide a walk 
in front of the house when walking elsewhere 
was difficult. 
Inside the House 
Entering the house we find ourselves at once 
in the large room, the full width of the house 
and lighted by windows in both sides. At the 
end is the great fireplace with its iron crane; 
the walls are plastered direct on the 
stone, or, if it is a more elaborate 
house, they and the ceiling are lined 
with broad planks whose joints are 
covered by a neat molded fillet. The 
stair rises rather irregularly in a cor¬ 
ner and climbs up to the single big 
attic above. A second room, or two 
rooms separated by a central partition, 
occupy the other end of the house, but 
the planning of the cottages is very 
rudimentary. 
The larger houses are often very 
broad—the Chateau de Ramezay is 
some 50' from front to back—and in 
these houses a central longitudinal 
wall divides the front from the back 
rooms. There will then be two fire¬ 
places in the gable, which show on the 
outside in the double chimney with its 
connecting parapet. 
The floors are of heavy squared logs 
often laid close together and boarded 
over. An effort towards fireproofing 
seems to have been made in the 
Chateau de Ramezay, where the base¬ 
ment is vaulted and the first floor cov¬ 
ered with stone paving laid over the 
wooden beams. 
Roofs and Eaves 
Roofs are steep, 40° or even more, 
and usually end in a chimneyed gable 
at each end. Quite a number, however, 
have hipped roofs with a central 
chimney. The gambrel roof which is 
so common in the villages is appar¬ 
ently a later introduction, but some of 
the old barns have hipped gambrels. 
In gabled houses the deep eaves are 
(Continued on page 52) 
Quebec has a good verandah cli¬ 
mate. Here is year-round shelter 
An old town house in Montreal showing the high parapets 
and double chimneys. Courtesy McGill University 
