COUNTRY LIFE
A Cottage Census It is much to be hoped that everyone who can will help forward the new proposal for a survey of old or historic cottages. Some local surveys of the sort have already been made by architects and members of the C.P.R.E. Scattered about the country • are numbers of. priceless cottages—some going back to the thirteenth century—Which might be destroyed at any moment and rouse no protest. None of the very oldest cottages that I know is inhabited by a villager proper, and the common objection that we ought not to ask poor people to live in uncomfortable cottagea, however beautiful, does not apply. Besides my experienCe exactly corroborates the feeling of the Newlyn fishermen." They very much prefer the old if it can be made sanitary. The nature of the site makes an enormous difference to the cottage dwellers. Many vastly preferred a low, small dark-roomed old cottage on the edge of an upland Common to the finest of county council cottages in the valley village, and though sanitation and comfort must be put high, this feeling ought to be recognised.
* * * *
Previous page
