Old Houses in Kent and Sussex 
AT CHARLTON, KENT 
STONEHILL FARM, CHIDDINGLY 
Petworth, a district of stone, there are many 
beautiful examples of this treatment (such as 
the one from I illington), where the lower 
part forms a large ingle recess, often lighted 
by small windows. I he sloping sides of the 
roof are tiled and finished on the outer edge 
by a series of brick crow steps, and the stack 
is carried up either in detached shafts or in a 
clustered group. It is interesting to note 
that, when the shafts are separated and placed 
diagonally, each face is made two and a-half 
bricks in width, a proportion universally ob¬ 
served and one that always gives satisfactory 
results. 1 he most common roof covering 
was a thick tile, of an agreeable dark red, but 
unevenly burned. I he irregularity of the 
tiles themselves and of their placing, and the 
way in which this irregularity produces a 
delicate play of light and shade, may be very 
clearly seen in the roof of the house at Sway- 
lands, near Penshurst. Thatched roofs are 
frequently met with ; and in Sussex, many of 
the houses are covered with Horsham stone 
slates (as at Stonehill Farm), thick and heavy, 
large at the eaves and diminishing toward the 
ridge. In most of the old houses the rooms 
were low, seldom more than eight feet high ; 
and the roof was brought well down on the 
side walls, so that the rooms upstairs were 
frequently badly lighted and ventilated, and 
little or no use was made of the large space 
in the roof over them. 
'The cottages and farmhouses shown in the 
book are such admirable examples of simple, 
straightforward building, that their very care- 
fid study will repay all who are interested in 
the artistic treatment of minor buildings; 
and though their direct copying in our own 
country would certainly be a thing to be 
deprecated, the suggestions they offer and 
the lessons to be learned from them cannot 
fail to be of the utmost use. 
