Old Cottage near Nutfield, Surrey 
PICTURESQUE ENGLISH COTTAGES AND THEIR 
DOORWAY GARDENS 
By P. H. Ditchfield, M.A., F.S.A., F.R.H.S. 
VJ. 
I T is interesting to note the process of the 
development of the English dwelling- 
house, its origin and evolution. The Eng¬ 
lish are a home-loving race, and England is 
the land of homes. The natural affection 
with which the nation regard their homes 
is to a great extent peculiar to the race on 
both sides of the Atlantic. The Frenchman, 
the Spaniard, the Italian, do not have the 
same respect for home. The villa of Italy, 
the chateau of France, the country-seat of 
England, differ from each other in their ar¬ 
rangements, precisely as their occupiers differ 
in the habits of life ; and whether the home 
be a mansion or a cottage, it is equally dear 
to those who dwell therein. 
The story of the evolution of the cottage 
can scarcely be traced so far back as the pre¬ 
historic cave-dwellings, where, in paleolithic 
times, a rude race of feral nomads dwelt and 
fashioned their crude tools of Hint and hunted 
the brown bear, the hyena, the hippopota¬ 
mus and other strange creatures which Eng¬ 
land now knows not. The earliest and 
simplest notion for constructing a dwelling 
was that of digging holes in the ground and 
roofing them over with a light thatch. Hence 
we have the pit dwellings of our distant 
forefathers, the neolithic folk, who made 
polished flint weapons, and were not an 
uncivilized race. At Hurstbourne, H ants, 
nine of these early habitations, rudely pitched 
with flint-stones, have been discovered. 
Some of these dwellings had passages lead¬ 
ing into them. A few flints, together with 
wood ashes, showed the position of the 
hearths. The sloping entrance passages are 
peculiar, and are almost unique in England, 
though several have been met with in France. 
A rude ladder was the usual mode of en¬ 
trance. T hese abodes had probably cone- 
shaped roofs made of rafters lashed together 
at the center, protected by an outside coat 
of peat, sods of turf or rushes. We can 
learn something of the nature of the abodes 
of the living by examining the chambers of 
the dead neolithic folk, as in most cases the 
latter were a copy of the former. The Wad- 
don Chambers, Kit’s Coty House, near 
Aylesford; Wayland Smith’s Cave, Berk¬ 
shire, and hundreds of other examples of 
sepulchral monuments show the resemblance 
of the earthly house with the grave. 
Another form of early cottage was the 
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