Picturesque English Cottages and Their Doorway Gardens 
civilization necessitated the addition of other 
chambers, a sleeping place for the lord and 
lady, the “ with-drawing-room ” (modern¬ 
ized to drawing-room), a chapel, kitchen, 
dormitory, etc., the hall maintained its pre¬ 
eminence even in the most complex plans. 
Amongst the inhabitants of the early vil¬ 
lage community, the geburs and villeins, and 
theows or surfs, we find, both in Domesday 
and pre-Domesday times, two classes of men 
who are styled bordarii or cottiers. These 
were the cottagers of ancient davs, who had 
small allotments of about five acres, kept no 
oxen, and were required to work for their 
lord some days in each week. The bordarii 
received their name from the Saxon word 
bord, signifying a cottage, and our word cot¬ 
tage is derived from the same root from 
which cottier springs. So in the dwellings 
of these folk we can see the earliest form of 
the actual cottage which we know today. 
These primitive cottages were built at the 
side of the principal road of the village, near 
the stream. They were poor and dirty 
dwellings, usually constructed of timber- 
posts, wattled and plastered with clay or 
mud. Usually there was only one storey, 
but sometimes there was an upper storey of 
posts which was reached by a ladder. The 
furniture must have been coarse and rude, a 
bacon rack and agricultural tools being the 
most conspicuous objects. Such luxuries as 
windows or chimneys were unknown. The 
floor was the bare ground. Outside the 
door was the “ mixen ” or midden, a manure 
and refuse heap. 'The fragrance of the 
country air and its sweet scents must have 
been somewhat modified by the unsavory 
smells. 
In the region of stone quarries, cottages at 
an early period were built of stone. The 
art of brickmaking, used so extensively by 
the Romans, was forgotten in Saxon times, 
and was not rediscovered until some centu¬ 
ries later. The earliest existing brick build¬ 
ing in England, with the exception of those 
constructed of Roman bricks, is sometimes 
stated to be the fine ruined Castle of Hurst- 
monceux, erected by Sir Roger De Eiennes, 
in 1440; but there is one older than this. 
Little Wenham Hall, Suffolk, built in the 
time of the third Henry, is, of course, older, 
and there is Little Coggeshall Chapel, Essex, 
which is a small brick building. It was not 
until the sixteenth century that brick build¬ 
ing became general, and some of the best 
and most picturesque of our cottages date 
from that period. 
It is bevond our purpose to sketch the 
growth of domestic architecture and trace 
the evolution of the modern mansion from 
the Saxon hall. But there are many old 
farm-houses in England, once manor-houses, 
which retain, in spite of subsequent altera¬ 
tions, the distinguishing features of medieval 
architecture. The twelfth century saw a 
separate sleeping chamber tor the lord and 
his lady. In the next century they dine in a 
room apart from their servants, an arrange¬ 
ment much satirized by “Piers Plowman” 
in Langland’s verse :— 
“ Now hath each rich a rule 
To eaten by themselve, 
In a privy parlour 
For poor man’s sake, 
Or in a chamber with a chimney: 
And leave the chief hall 
That was made for meals 
Men to eaten in.” 
This process of development led to a mul¬ 
tiplication of rooms and the diminution of 
the size of the great hall. The walls were 
raised, and an upper room was formed under 
the roof for sleeping accommodation. In 
smaller houses, during the fifteenth century, 
the hall disappears and corridors are intro¬ 
duced in order to give access to the various 
chambers. Some of these houses are built 
in the form of the letters E and H, which 
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