The Studio yearbook of decorative art (1908)

ON SOME RECENT BRITISH DESIGNS
FOR COUNTRY HOUSES. By E. Guy
Dawber, F.R.I.B.A.

THERE is something very attractive about the country-
house, and its whole environment and surroundings appeal
strongly to the imagination. It is no easy matter to
discover by analysis whence comes this charm, for it is always
associated with quiet peaceful days spent amidst fields and gardens,
and in our mind's eye we conjure up visions of lichen-coloured roofs
and tall chimneys embosomed amongst trees and foliage, with cool
old fashioned rooms and time worn furniture. Age of itself makes
for harmony, and these old houses have weathered into a kind of
sympathy with their surroundings, which seem to absorb them
into the natural landscape.

One doubts if the red-brick villas of the Victorian era, were
they to last till eternity, could ever gain an equal charm, though
this may be accounted for partly by the changed conditions under
which they were built.

The very simplicity of the builders of the 17th and 18th
centuries saved them from glaring mistakes. They made direct
for comfort and convenience, as they regarded it, without troubling
overmuch about ornament or design. Their work was the result
of evolution growing out of the wants which the builders had to
satisfy and of the local material at their command, and too much
stress cannot be laid upon the fact that it was the being compelled
by force of circumstances to use only the materials to hand that
made old work so restful. That in itself made for harmony, as
it was almost impossible for the homely materials to be out ot
keeping with their surroundings.

Many of these old houses possess an old world charm, a tran-
quil feeling of repose and atmosphere of home. And that is
what the modern builder finds most difficult, indeed impossible,
to obtain. His villas seem to spell apartments, lodgings, and yearly
tenants, never the thought that here in this house, children may
be born, and live, and die. Our houses reflect far too much the
restless hurry of the age.

Again, it is the present day taste for cheap ornamentation and
pretentiousness and the importation of strange materials and features
that spoil so many houses, the bringing of jarring notes into the
peace and simplicity of the country.

Turning to the present time, probably more country houses
are being built and more money and thought expended on them,

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