A
great writer has likened an old house to a human heart with a life of
its own, full of sad and sweet reminiscences. It is deplorably sad
when the old mansion disappears in a night, and to find in the morning
nothing but blackened walls--a grim ruin.
Our forefathers were a hardy race, and did not require hot-water
pipes and furnaces to keep them warm. Moreover, they built their
houses so surely and so well that they scarcely needed these modern
appliances. They constructed them with a great square courtyard, so
that the rooms on the inside of the quadrangle were protected from the
winds. They sang truly in those days, as in these:--
Sing heigh ho for the wind and the rain,
For the rain it raineth every day.
[Illustration: Oak Panelling. Wainscot of Fifteenth Century, with
addition _circa_ late Seventeenth Century, fitted on to it in angle of
room in the Church House, Goudhurst, Kent]
So they sheltered themselves from the wind and rain by having a
courtyard or by making an E or H shaped plan for their dwelling-place.
Moreover, they made their walls very thick in order that the winds
should not blow or the rain beat through them. Their rooms, too, were
panelled or hung with tapestry--famous things for making a room warm
and cosy. We have plaster walls covered with an elegant wall-paper
which has always a cold surface, hence the air in the room, heated by
the fire, is chilled when it comes into contact with the cold wall and
creates draughts.
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