Cottages at Merrow 
PICTURESQUE ENGLISH COTTAGES AND THEIR 
DOORWAY GARDENS 
By P. H. Ditchfield, M.A., F.S.A., F.R.H.S. 
IX. 
\ AE have examined the exterior of our cot- 
* * tage, the walls, roof and chimney-stack. 
And now we will glance at the windows. In 
many old cottages and farmhouses in England 
you will see some windows blocked up. The 
illustration of the house at Seend shows such 
a bricked window. This was done on account 
of the tax on 
windows im¬ 
posed in the 
seventh year 
of the reign of 
William III., 
which was not 
repealed until 
1851, when 
the tax on in¬ 
habited hou¬ 
ses was substi¬ 
tuted for it. 
We have had 
many curious 
taxes to pay 
— a hearth 
tax,which is as 
old as the time 
of Domes¬ 
day Book, 
wherein it is 
called fumage or fuage , and by the vulgar 
“smoke farthings,” poll tax, window tax, and 
a law obliging us to be buried in woolen. It 
is strange to our notions that the light of 
heaven streaming through our windows 
should ever have been a source of royal 
revenue. Lord Bacon inveighed against the 
large win¬ 
dows in some 
houses “so 
full of glass 
that one can¬ 
not tell where 
to become to 
he out of the 
sun or cold.” 
Such windows 
were formed 
by filling in 
several of the 
spaces be¬ 
tween the tim¬ 
bers of a tim- 
b e r - b u i 1 t 
house with 
lights. They 
have a very 
pleasing and 
picturesque 
A VILLAGE HOUSE AT SEEND 
21 I 
