An abbey is an abbey, but a cottage...

...is the way to my heart. And, I actually live in one, although...alas, not one at all like these charming English country cottages.



The book was published by Viking Press and was a gift from my oldest daughter who had heard me (tiresomely) talk of someday retiring in a cottage on a little hill with views of the green, rolling hills of Devonshire, like Barton Cottage. Or maybe a cottage like Miss Marple's in a charming village like St. Mary Mead. (Yes, I read far too many romantic novels as a teenager.)

In my vision, there would be a little patch of a garden, plants on the window sill, a tea kettle on the hob, and a cat in the garden. (That I actually wound up in a little cottage north of Atlanta with a husband in the living room, a marmalade tabby on his lap, and a patch of garden is a story for another time.)

With dreams of Downton Abbey or Doneagle in our heads, I thought it might be wise to come back down to earth and visit simple cottages like the one that Elinor, Marianne, Margaret and Mrs. Dashwood lived in.

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This cottage really is part of the rolling landscape of Devon. Called Berrynarbor, it's in Ilfracombe, Devonshire. There are more than twenty thousand farm sites in Devon which has more roads and lanes than in the whole of Belgium. All cottages were originally thatched, but extensive fires changed that. In time the Devonians began to re-roof their homes with slate.

 

 

 

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This cottage is in Walsham-Le-Willows, Ixworth, Suffolk which is an oasis of a village set between large prairie fields.  The cottage was built in the 17th century and has been little changed, the exception being new thatching to the roof when needed. The book states that the cottage is repainted every two years, as the great architect/historian William Morris advocated. I absolutely love this little house with its reed fence, brick wall and kitchen garden. I can picture a small hedgehog digging into the soil in search of slugs and other tasty morsels.

 

 

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Piercebridge, Darlington, County Durham. It sometimes took fifty years for the fashions of the south to reach the north of England, the authors state, which makes this late-Georgian-looking house to actually be 19th century. Built of hard limestone, granites and slates, materials difficult to work with, these cottages often had a rough look to them, perhaps lacking the charm of the more delicate ones to the south. The decorative lip moldings above the door and windows were there to throw off the rain.

 

 

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Ixworth, Thingoe, Suffolk. This Victorian eye-catcher echoes the rustic church in the village. Note the Gothic-inspired windows and door, which are in reality painted on the façade of the house. The real windows are to the right of the house. Even wee cottages have an element of conceit!

 

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Sidmouth, Devonshire. Called Old Cotmaton Cottage, this little abode was built in 1830. Horace Walpole's Thames-side village, Strawberry Hill, set a fashionable pattern for having rural retreats that suggested romance to retired Colonial administrators and military men who liked shady verandas, spacious lawns and the sunny climate of Devon. The Gothic windows on this cottage are real. Note, too, the small greenhouse to the left of the house.

 

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Badminton, Sodbury, Gloucestershire. This thatched umbrella cottage is by Thomas Wright and is a prime example of the earliest style called cottage ornes. To me it resembles something a Hobbit could live in!

 

 

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Eridge Green, Frant, Sussex. This charmer was originally built to serve as a schoolhouse and is in the much-favored Tudor-Revival style of the 1880s.  Called Staircase Cottage, it is now a private dwelling. This is as close to my ideal of the perfect cottage as anything possibly could be!

 

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Holly Village, Highgate, London. Not quite a cottage and not in the countryside, this charmer was built by the very wealthy Baroness Burdett-Coutts for her retired servants. I think Mr. and Mrs. Bates would do very well living here!