Picturesque English Cottages and Their Doorway Gardens 
AN OLD THATCHED COTTAGE ON THE ISLE OF WIGHT 
Thatched cottages are always delightfully 
warm in winter, and cool in summer. No 
cottage which is thatched, however humble 
it may be, can possibly be altogether ugly. 
In former days heather and moss were used 
for covering houses. In old inventories, 
dating from the fourteenth to the seventeenth 
centuries, we read of laborers being paid to 
get moss and heather tor roofing. Reeds, 
turf and rushes were also used as well as 
straw and stone and slate. 
In early times, shingles, or square pieces 
of the heart of oak, one foot long by four or 
six inches wide, and half an inch thick, were 
used for roofing, but were discontinued in 
the fourteenth century. They required a 
somewhat steep slope, and are 
still used for the timber spires 
of churches. The roof of a 
house is its most prominent 
and important feature. Much 
ingenuity has been exercised 
in the construction of these 
roofs, and most picturesque 
are they in their grouping and 
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arrangement. You can recognize the earlier 
roofs by their steepness. The later sixteenth 
century roof was much flatter. Another 
sign of early work is the long, uninterrupted 
sweep of the roof without dormer windows or 
gables, and terminated by hips. The hips 
are extended to cover the lean-to buildings, 
and at the back the main roof is continued 
in the same manner. 
I have, in a previous article, alluded 
to the tiler’s art. An old English red-tiled 
roof, when it has become mellowed by age, 
with moss and lichens growing upon it, is 
one of the great charms of an English land¬ 
scape. Roof-tiles are larger and heavier 
than those used for hanging on the sides of 
_^ houses, and the old ones are 
thicker and more unevenly 
burnt than modern ones. 
The pins for fastening them 
to the oak laths were made of 
HIP COVERING A LEAN-TO 
hazel or willow. Now iron 
pins are used, which corrode 
and rot the wood, and roofs 
are less durable than of yore. 
