SMALL COUNTRY HOUSES OF TO-DAY.*
Sra LAWRENCE WEAVER would probably himself agree that it is now time the revised "Volume One" of his Small Country 110118e8 of To-Day had its title also revised to read as "of yesterday," for it begins with the portentous little house that Philip Webb built for William Morris in 1859 and ends so long ago as before the War. To say this is also to say that the book has a peculiar historical interest for such as are interested in architectural development and in the work of the elders of the craft from an evolutionary point of view. The plain man in search of direct suggestions for his house-building will probably
find one of Sir Lawrence's later volumes more immediately helpful.
To his sympathetic and erudite appreciations he does, however, add an introduction full of wise counsel to those about to build —more particularly on the selection of a site. There is another vital decision to be made :—
" Let it be said at once that the momentous question. of success or failure rests wholly upon the wise choice of an architect. . . . Clients subject themselves to no small embarrassment and loss if they fail to summon to their counsels the architect of their choice immediately they have decided to build. His experience is of the greatest value, not only in the design of the house itself, but in the choice of a site. Many factors have to be taken into consideration which it is unlikely that the layman will remember."
That so large a proportion of even the quite small houses is to-day being built under competent advice is due in no small degree to Sir Lawrence Weaver's unflagging propaganda on behalf of architectural seemliness—a seemliness only to be attained through the employment of good architects.
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