. The House to Live In LTHOUGH there still remain
in these over-populated islands a few unaffected souls who, scorning labori. ous days, prefer to cat and sleep in caves, hollow trees, or under roadside hedges with the mice and robins, it is an undisputed fact that the great majority of us consider the acquisition of a house—or at least a portion of a housd .—the first necessity of existence. . We want an anchorage --so much so, indeed, that the less imaginative will even go so far as to paint up some such atrocity. as "The Moorings," ." The Nest," _or "Eureka on their very doorstep--and since we must have a house, why shouldn't it be a comfortable one ? Dismissing as negligible, therefore, that dwindling section of the conununity which is for ever lamenting the fact that the good old days are now no more—those queer people who love to live in an old, cold, creaky house simply because it is an old, cold, creaky house—one may take it that everybody is essenti- ally interested in the idea of the Perfect Dwelling. And that being so, the latest developments in the art of lint economically—or merely lazily—as exemplified in the Daily Mail Ideal Home Exhibition at Olympia, are such as to merit the attention of everyone.
To consider fora start the internal economy of the home the modern English house as I visualize it now is a electrically run concern which, provided one touches th right button at the right time, will make all its ow arrangements as to feeding, washing, keeping fit, a amusing its inhabitants. One servant, to press button and turn on taps here and there, would be an advantage if one Was thoroughly incompetent oneself—but is no at all a necessity. Even in a large establishment supply ing its own power by means of one of the latest petrol-g generators it would seem that there is practically 110 work to be done beyond seeing that the electric servan are kept up to the mark. And this is all to the good although, indeed, there is something to be said for t idea that the larger a house is the less likely is it t be perfect.
Imagine oneself, then, the possessor of a small, filth equipped country residence of the 1927 period. 0 getting up in the morning one proceeds to a white-ti] bathroom where, the water being electrically heated, hot bath is ready in a few moments. A short bask in t glow of one's private Alpine Sun then follows, break is self-cooked in a tiled kitchen equipped with eve conceivable hygienic and culinary device, including frost-box that does keep things cold, an electric oven, 'tea-pot with a snout that doesn't drip, and a maehi 'which washes the dishes, drys them, and puts them into 'rack, while one lounges back into an easy chair spedi .sprung to give. the maximum of rest ; truly an epoe making 'invention, this washing-up Machine, as no can deny that washing 'dishes is wholly loathsome ha ness, the 'sooner. cut out of the scheme of things the bett The only equally unpleasant task, in the undertakin,g which no inventor has as yet come forward to help small householder out, appears to be the lighting of ° fires, for while central heating may keep a house as so as a bluetit's nest, a red brick ingle fireplace with an 5 Overmantel, a wide fireplace in which logs will burn, still imperative. Where is the electric apparatus will lay and light a fire on a cold, dark morning? wh one mustn't grumble. Are there not electrical plal suction-cleaners that literally feed on dirt,'broades 'telephones, and Water-softening machines ? All in addition, . is to the interior of the house requires, tastefully furnished in the best Modern stile, with of woodwork, inset book-cages. bright one-colour and, of course, casement windows fitted with vita glass. As to design and the appearance of the house from the outside, that must be dictated by the nature of the country in which the house is situated—a point even experts are liable to forget. In Borneo, for example, many houses are necessarily on stilts, to raise them above the malign crawling life of the swamps ; in the dark red moorland of my own northern home in Ross-shire, a cold, grey stone is chiefly used, with a thatched or blue- slated roof, and any other combination would be out of place. In England, at present, no such definite design is discernible—in fact domestic architecture, especially in the neighbourhood of London, is just now in a state of amazing hullabaloo—but it is probable that the ideal type for the southern and western wooded shires is of the half- timbered Tudor design, roofed with warm red tiles and standing on a low plinth of red bricks to keep it above the weather. The art of the -English village craftsman should be accepted as the priceless heritage it is, but neither slavishly copied, nor exploited in the vulgar craze for make-believe antiquity. With a skilful interweaving of ancient and modern methods something very fine indeed may be achieved. And thus the Maple House and the Potter's Bar three-cornered Sun-trap House at Olympia - both entirely modern and yet in the Tudor style—are wholly admirable. So is one led to marvel at the con- fusion to which domestic architecture has lately come.
In this year of 1927, when more ingenuity, art and invention are brought to bear on the designing of English houses than were ever expended for a like purpose in the whole history of the world, why is the jerry-building contractor still allowed to pursue his nightmare course through England for the ultimate besmirching of all that was lovable and fair in what was once a green and pleasant land ? Apart from all gadgets and trivial household nicknacks, even the homely little establishment of two rooms and a cat can be perfect in its way. The super- stition that a comely house must necessarily be more expensive than an ugly one is balderdash. In the fifteenth century no house was built but had some charm and lasting quality about it, yet even then small houses were so easily run together or dismantled that, when a labourer moved to a new neighbourhood, as often as not he took his house with him. In the year 1426, for instance, We have it recorded of one William Found that, " he had departed and carried off his cottage."
When all has been said about internal economy and design, however, by far the most important point in any ansideration of " the house to live in " is its situation. Iere it is a case of every man to his choice, but it will be eed, I think, that a position half-way up a hillside, with a southern exposure overlooking green and fruitful alleys to a distant view of the sea would not easily be ttered. Up there we will have a wildish garden on the rink of the beechwood, with daffodils in a grassy orchard, reen lawns, and a rock garden built about a stream whose ubbling may be heard from the bedroom . windows. 'Inc delightful rock-gardens have been laid out at 1Yrapia by acknowledged experts, and from there I 'flow at least one happy idea—that of low walls, ollow along the top, in which Alpine plants, blue primroses d gentians are grown with English crocuses, and hya- Intlis. This would be the only formal part of the garden, ad it would be paved with blue crazy paving to the front aw. The house being three-cornered, such a garden would a sun-trap,. and, sitting up there on a golden afternoon, n would just be able to .catch faint music of the village thy rising from beyond the hazel copse. Nothing much re would be required, except. a high -wall for peaches
Previous page
