The English Cottage

Originally published in 1938. Many of the earliest books, particularly those dating back to 1900s and before, are now extremely scarce and increasingly expensive. We are now republishing these classic works in affordable, high quality, modern editions, using the original text and artwork. PREFACE - Two reasons to justify a book on the English Cottage might be One that its study, or at least the perusal of its illustrations, would tend to stimulate the public to a more united effort to defend the rather precarious existence of these little buildings, which, often beautiful in themselves, are nearly always a vital ingredient in the beauty of their patch of landscape and Two that a study of their craftsmanship and technique, which represent the comnlon denominators of English taste and construction through many centuries, would help to bring about the wider appreciation of a tradition that often expresses itself as completely in the cottage as in Inore ambitious buildings-a tradition of which, despite improved amenities, all members of the community might still avail themselves with benefit the builder and manufacturer equally with the architect and craftsman, to say nothing of that vast lethargic public whose demand creates their wares. Even at the present time, only a comparatively small minority respects the value and beauty of the old cottages, both intrinsically and in relation to their surroundings and it seems urgently desirable, in such restless and ruthless days, that their cause should enlist a wider range of sympathy, backed with publicity and money, if those that remain are not to share the fate of so much else that was beautiful in this country, and has been relegated, withcontempt and indifference, to that busy bird of prey, the demolition contractor. Cottages are common-sense buildings their study requires little technical knowledge and demands little technical jargon.