Picturesque English Cottages and their Doorway Gardens 
COTTAGES AT CALBORNK 
building with anxious care; guard it as best 
you may, and at any cost from any influence 
of dilapidation. Count its stones as you 
would the jewels of a crown. Set watchers 
about it, as if at the gate of a besieged city; 
bind it together with iron when it loosens. 
Stay it with timber when it declines. Do 
not care about the unsightliness of the aid 
—better a crutch than a lost limb; and do 
this tenderly and reverently and continually, 
and many a generation will still be born and 
pass away beneath its shadow.” Loving care 
has carefully guarded the Lingfield shop. It 
has a glass window now. Glass windows were 
introduced in the eighteenth century; until that 
time the fronts of village shops were very simi¬ 
lar to that at Lingfield. 
In singing the praise of old 
cottages, I must not forget that 
they are not always satisfactory 
as places of residence. Of 
course when a cottage is un¬ 
healthy and insanitary, some¬ 
thing must be done to remedy 
it. T h e landlord usually pulls 
it down and builds a bran-new 
house. But the sentiment of 
the cottager clings to his old 
roof-tree. An old villager whose 
cottage was being restored was 
asked, 
“When are you going back, John, 
to your house ?” 
“In about a month, so 
they tell me, sir,” he replied; 
and with a sigh and a 
shake of his head he added, 
“but it won’t be like going 
home. ” 
A little pains and money 
would insert drains and pro¬ 
vide a good well, and save 
many a house from total 
destruction. 
The other important vil¬ 
lage house is the inn—a hos¬ 
tel such as Izaak Walton 
loved to sketch, “an honest 
alehouse where we shall find 
a cleanly room, lavender in 
the windows and twenty 
ballads stuck about the wall, 
where the linen looks white and smelt of 
lavender, and a hostess cleanly, handsome 
and civil. ” On all the great roads you will 
find such inns, now bereft of their ancient 
glory; but still bearing the marks of their 
former greatness, beautiful in their decay. 
The red-tiled roof, the deep bay window, 
the swinging sign-board, the huge horse- 
trough, the pump and out-door settle form 
a picture which artists love to sketch; while 
within the old-fashioned fireplace, with seats 
on each side in the ingle-nook, and the blazing 
log fire in the dog-grate, are cheering sights 
to the weary traveler. We would linger 
here and revive the recollections of former 
days, see again the merry coach come in, 
BALDON, OXON 
272 
