The English Country Cottage - Softcover

For most people today the English country cottage conjures up an idyllic picture of deep thatched roof, leaded windows, and roses over the door. Yet these were the homes of our ancestors for centuries, when the majority of the population lived off the land. This enthralling and beautifully illustrated study traces the lifestyle of these generations of cottagers - rural labourer, craftsman or small-holder - through the manorial system and its subsequent break-up, the encroachment of sheep-farming in Tudor times, the agrarian revolution of the eighteenth century, and the agricultural depression following the Napoleonic Wars.
Also it traces the development of the cottage from the single-roomed peasant's cot of the Middle Ages, through the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries - the golden age of cottage building - to the Picturesque cottages of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and on to the brick cottages of the twentieth century.
The construction and geographical distribution of each type of cottage timber-framed, mud, stone and brick is explained, together with the methods used to weatherproof them and the various types of roof coverings. There are also chapters on chimneys, fireplaces, floors, ceilings, stairs, doors and windows, and how they developed.