~Regency Wednesday~ Gardener's Cottage

RE-POST: Blogger's recent downtime sent this post into oblivion. It was originally posted Wednesday evening. Apologies to anyone who already saw it. 

Saw this quaint little cottage (complete with floor plans) when perusing the 1816 (volume 2) edition of Ackermann's Repository. (Clicking the pic will take you to the Google book.)

"ARCHITECTURAL HINTS. 

Plate 7. —A Gardener's Cottage. 

  Although the annexed design was made expressly for the residence of the gardener of a nobleman's establishment, it is quite applicable to the purpose of a lodge; and if a little simplified in point of embellishment, would also be proper for the cottage of the husbandman: in each of these applications it would afford convenience and comfort, and might receive suitable enrichment by the plantations which should surround the two former, or by the more free and open scenery suitable to the latter. The cottage of the gardener, in very many instances, is considered to be a legitimate embellishment of the grounds, being very properly situated near the forcing and succession-houses, that they may receive the attendance of the chief gardener, and with as short intervals as occasion requires; and if he take pride in the decoration of his abode, he has the means of embowering with shrubs, creepers, and flowering plants, by which he may render it highly interesting, provided the design is favorable, and the situation appropriate to its object. 

  This building is proposed to be thatched with reeds, as the most rural and picturesque covering; the brown tints of its surface oppose the various greens of the foliage by which it is accompanied, and give a neatness of effect that is very prepossessing, which may be improved by the colour given to the walls, should they be built of materials that do not harmonize with them. For the covering of such walls rough-coat is very proper, which is plastering finished by a coat of lime mixed with small stones about the size of a pea or small bean, and splashed upon it before the plastering is yet dry; or by paretta work, so called from the French paroître, to appear, to be seen—or from the Italian paretta, a small net; as in this case the plastering has pebbles of a larger size pressed all over it, and which are not afterwards covered by lime, wash, or colour, but exhibit their own surfaces, and the whole becomes enriched by the white reticulation of the plastering in which they are set. The colours of the pebbles should be selected with taste, as much of the beauty of the whole will depend on their fitness to harmonize with those hues by which they are surrounded. 

  Notwithstanding cottages of this description are built with brick, yet as the complexion of them is at variance with the green tints of the scenery, particularly if they are the red wood-burned bricks of the country, the coverings before named are usually adopted for small decorative buildings, such as the dairy, dovecote, ice-well, or bath; and for this purpose also a finishing of a very novel and fanciful effect is produced by a sort of rough-cast composed of coarse sand and small pebbles of various sizes, mixed up with Roman cement, and diluted to the consistency of common rough-cast, and thrown upon the walls in larger quantities than is usual: this is suffered to take the irregular and projecting forms of stalactitæ, those concretions resembling icicles that are frequently found in natural grottoes; and they may be coloured afterwards by tints representing them, or by others that seem to mark a lapse of time: this has hitherto been practised only in two instances."