Page:An Encyclopædia of Cottage, Farm, and Villa Architecture and Furniture.djvu/578

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page needs to be proofread.

55i COTTAGE, FARM, AND VILLA ARCHITECTURE. shelter-shed is designed on the west side, for a few young cattle. If this should be required, the wall around it should be six feet high. On a farm of this kind, a consider- able number of pigs may be kept; a number of sheds for them are therefore laid out in a convenient situation, and more can be added if necessary. A good supply of water to a steading of thii- description is of great importance ; and the cistern may be put up over the gig or store house. A superintendent's house is also designed, it being necessary that such a person shoidd be near the establishment at all times. It will also be proper to attend particularly to the architectural arrangements for cleaning and ventilating the cow-houses. In some farm buildings of this description, the dairy is connected with the outhouses ; and the same power that drives the threshing-machine gives motion to the churn : but it is conceived that it would be more convenient to attach the dairy to the farm house at a little distance from the outhouses, where there would be purer air, and where the work is to be performed under the eye of the mistress of the farm. As the dairy does not, in the present Design, form a part of the houses, no plan of it is given." 1 1 85. General Estimate. This plan, exclusive of the carriage of materials and the prime cost of stones, will cost about ^1300, covered with slate; if covered with tiles, about iriOOO. {Ibid., p. 386.) Design XLIII. — A Farmery for a Clay- Land arable Farm of 500 Acres, not producing Turnips, and kept chiefly, or wholly, in Tillage. 1186. Accommodation. The ground plan, fig. 1088, shows a cart-shed, a; tool-house, b ; gig-house, c ; stable, d ; harness-room, with a flue for a stove, e ; three stables, /; hay-house, g ; spare house, h ; straw-barn, i ; dressing-barn, k, in which are indicated the place for the machinery, and the stair to the corn-loft ; granary, I ; two cow-houses, m ; house for bull, n ; calf-house, o ; potato-house, p ; boiling-house, q ; poultry-house, r ; two pigsties, s ; slielter-sheds, t ; yard for young cattle, M ; yards for feeding cattle, y^ 1086 1087 V V ; situation of the gangway, or inclined plane to the corn-floor, w; and rick-yard, a-. 1187. Construction. Fig. 1086 is a section, A B, across the barn, or granary. Fig. 1087 is a section, C D, across the stable. With the exception of the barn and granary, all the out-buildings are only one story high ; the walls of the straw-house are 10 feet high, and those of all the others 8 feet. 1188. Remarks. " In this plan, the stables and cart-sheds are conveniently situated, and the barns are well placed for supplying the courts or yards with straw. The dung from the stables and cow-houses is designed to go into the yards by the small gates. The yards here may be diiferently divided, if it be thought expedient. The extent of granaries above and below, together, is 88 feet by 18; perhaps more than in some, but not more than in other cases, miglit be required. The boiling-house, in this plan, is not so near the stables as could be wished ; but, as there is not room for it and the potato- house in the same range where the stables are, and it being necessary to keep it near the outside of the square, and as far from the barn yard as possible, there is no other part where it could be so properly placed, except it were placed where the cart-sheds are, and the cart-sheds were made in the west range, which woidd be found to be attended with inconvenience. The flue of the boiling-house here may go round the back of the poultry- house, and the chimney be erected on the west side of it. There is also a plan for a small stove in the harness-room, next the saddle-horse stable, which will be found to be of great use in winter or damp weather." ( Trans. High. Sac, vol. viii. p. 384.) We have not, either in this case, or in most of the others, copied the elevations given by the Highland Society ; because they are all of the very plainest description, and without the slightest pretension to architectural style. We must say, we deeply regret this circum- stance ; because a public body, so influential as the Highland Society of Scotland, might easily effect important improvements, not only in the economical arrangements, but also in the architectural taste, of farm houses, farm buildings, and cottage dwellings. Indeed, the farm buildings, and especially the farm houses, of the northern half of the island, are as far behind those of the south in point of architectural taste, as they are before them in point of arrangement. Where, for example, shall we find, in Scotland, a farm bailiff's house like that at Bury Hill, § 847 ; or, in the south of England, a farm- yard like that of Elcho ? It is true that a mere farmery affords but slight opportunities of displaying architectural style ; but, slight as these are, they are such as would render the most common-place arrangement of walls and roofs as different from the external appearance which they now present, as a wall of mud is from one of hewn stone.