House <U Garden 
LD HOUSES IN KENT AND 
SUSSEX. 1 
Works dealing with the domestic 
architecture of England, such as those of 
Gotch, Blomfield, or Belcher and McCartney 
—excellent as they are—pass over without 
illustration, and almost in silence, the cottages 
and farmhouses of the country. The admir¬ 
able little book which forms the subject ol this 
notice gives proot ot the abundance of such 
buildings and of their high artistic interest. 
It contains a hundred illustrations; and among 
them there is scarcely one which lacks the sin¬ 
gular charm that pervades the examples given 
here. Indeed the 
only embarrassment 
in illustrating a no¬ 
tice of such a book is 
an embarrassment of 
riches, for it is hard 
to choose where each 
plate has some spe¬ 
cial claim to repro¬ 
duction. As an in¬ 
troduction to Mr. 
Davie’s photo- 
graphs, Mr. Dawber 
has contributed an 
essay on the types of 
structure represent¬ 
ed and on the 
changes that took 
place in their con¬ 
struction and treat¬ 
ment. This essay 
coming f r o m the 
pen of an architect, 
known for his excel¬ 
lent designs of minor 
buildings, is done in 
so sympathetic and 
so thorough a way as 
to add greatly to the 
interest and useful¬ 
ness of the book. It 
is our intention here 
to present a brief outline of this essay, giving 
the author’s ideas as faithfully as possible and, 
as far as may be, in his own words. 
The houses shown are, with rare excep¬ 
tions, of the sixteenth century, or later, since 
very few of the abodes of the poorer class 
have remained from the Middle Ages ; and 
whatever may have been the foreign influ¬ 
ence upon the architecture of the larger 
houses, it is certain that among the smaller 
buildings, standing modestly by the wayside, 
one finds the work conceived and carried out 
entirely by Englishmen. It is this old cottage 
architecture, more than anything else, that 
has made the South of England so pictur¬ 
esque and has produced the quiet beauty of 
its villages and hamlets. One of the charms 
of these cottages is that they never pretend 
to be anything but what they are. There was 
no straining for effect either in construction 
or ornament; and there was nothing fantastic 
in outline, or frivo¬ 
lous in detail, to de¬ 
tract from the simple 
dignity of the build¬ 
ings. One of the 
main characteristics 
of building general¬ 
ly, in former times, 
was suitability to 
situation, and a right 
use of local mater¬ 
ials ; so that we find 
in these examples 
from Kent and Sus¬ 
sex types distinct 
from those of the 
northern counties. 
In certain districts 
there were well de¬ 
fined styles, carried 
on for many years 
with but little 
change. The old 
builders used tradi¬ 
tional forms, but 
with such freshness 
and individuality 
that, though every 
detail may be famil¬ 
iar, each house has 
a certain character 
distinct from its 
neighbor. Detail and design varied perhaps 
with the introducton of new ideas ; but the 
old materials were still used on the traditional 
lines. As the entire weald of Kent and Sus- 
iOld Cottages and Farmhouses in Kent and Sussex, 
by W. Galsworthy Davie and E. Guy Dawber. 7" xg'A" ; x, 
28 pp. ; 100 collotype plates. London, B. T. Batsford ; New 
York, Longmans, Green, & Company, 1900. $7.50. 
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