UNDERSTANDING COTTAGES.  ISBN 186163178-2

Published by CAPALL BANN PUBLISHING

Available from any bookshop £12.95.

LANDSCAPES IN MINIATURE.  ISBN 0-7188-2602-7

Published by LUTTERWORTH PRESS AND SHELDON PRESS

Available from Amazon.

Either book can be loaned from a public library.

'Understanding Cottages'  (Top)

A cottage in the country is a dream of English rural life. My book 'UNDERSTANDING COTTAGES' and the work which serves to illustrate it, is an attempt to distil the essence of our perception of that life, the dream and the reality, through to the present day.

Over England's countryside a scattering of ancient cottage homes still remain, reinforcing the widely held belief that in some past 'good old days' contented and robust cottage folk lived happily in an unspoiled and verdant rural paradise. Here, it would seem, are the last remnants of a traditional cottage idyll which is slipping away.

To explore the origins of this ancestral legend it is necessary to understand the structure and fabric of both the cottages and the lives they sheltered. These were the homes of the majority - ordinary people whose experiences established the English character.

Most of the old cottages have been destroyed, those that remain have been altered and adapted to fit modern ways.

The countryside has also undergone radical change and the original setting has been lost.

Now that farming has become little more than a money orientated business, those cottages that remain have long since lost their connection with the agricultural life. That vision of a simpler and more natural life, that we have come to believe was the cottage experience, has been increasingly distorted.

Can we now understand the impact cottage life and cottage nostalgia have had upon English culture, art and literature?

Should we try to preserve like a rare plant, that essence of our cottage heritage, a heritage which we may one day discover holds the cure for many of our modern ills?

This book attempts to provide some answers. The middle section is devoted to eight notable cottages, their structure, and their history. The photographic illustrations show these cottages recreated in a living landscape of old trees and hedgerows, a rural world reduced in size.

Each cottage completes its role, which is to convey a clear and basic understanding of vernacular houses to the reader and establish a knowledge of the rural story. The aims have been to be neither sentimentally nostalgic, nor to over use technical jargon.

The research for this book has been painstaking in its quest for truth, ranging through history to bring into focus the reality of those cottage days and the conditions which surrounded the generations who lived through them. The origins of cottage nostalgia are investigated, as are the possibilities which still exist for an individual to step out of the mainstream and seek a simple country freedom.

Please read the first chapter of the book

Introduction to 'Landscapes in Miniature'

HAVE you ever lain in the sun on a summer's day and looked into the world of endless forests of grass? With your eye at grass level, what adventures can be imagined in the jungle which confronts you? Your mind adjusts to the new dimensions; you look for pathways through, and glades beyond. The empty meadow now starts to show glimpses of its varied population. Perhaps an iridescent beetle comes crashing past, or a ladybird bends a branch double under its weight.

You have mentally stepped into another world. Almost all of us have experienced this at some time.

Who doesn't daydream of getting away from it all? Of a cottage in the country, of a rural scene of lake and wood, valley and hillside. Of peace and beauty, quiet and solitude.

Is it not, then, possible to find the cottage set in the peace and beauty we seek, in the same way as we are able to step into the forests of grass? As this is a book about gardening, let us speak in terms of gardening. The answer is YES!

The spirit of the gardener may be confined by his means and his space, but if he adjusts his scale his imagination can soar and all things are possible.

A way with the cramped plans involving a few square feet of lawn and half-a­ dozen rose bushes. The heritage of the human imagination is for rolling downs, forests, lakes, rivers, majestic trees, waterfalls, crags and green valleys. This book is about these things. It is about tiny violets, jasmine, willows, ash, birch, brambles and the dark, evergreen conifers. It is about a growing, living land of peace and beauty.

You can have anything you want. A thatched cottage with dark timbering. A dream home, your ideal, set in the countryside you consider the finest. Perhaps a cottage garden with a stone wall, a path leading away over a meadow to a wooded hill. Round the cottage, sheltering it, some fine old trees, casting welcome shade in summer. Even a mountain with a bare rock face, the countryside around showing nothing of the hand of man. A garden railway enthusiast can lay his rails through real countryside.

All of this can be encompassed in a very small piece of garden, or in a slightly limited way on a balcony. Even in a window box you can have a large, tree-edged, garden, rather than a few daffodils. A box or bowl can be brought indoors for a few days holding a forest glade or a wooded river bank.

You can plan it, form it, and see it take shape. You can move a hill a hundred yards to right or left, as it suits you, until the landscape is as you want. Then you can plant the trees, shrubs, flowers and bushes. Watch it clothe itself in green fields, see it mature; the familiar trees become part of a familiar scene.

The small boundaries of your miniature land will, at times, take on the aspect of a jeweller's counter as you build it up plant by plant and learn to know and appreciate each one for its perfect miniature symmetry. A symmetry which changes and reflects each season of the year. You will see the first buds, the little flowers opening and giving their perfect displays. The tiny berries that follow will bejewel the shrubs. Then the autumn golds and russets will precede the silver, grey and brown outlines of winter, dotted with the dark evergreens.

All of this is possible because of the remarkable diversity of nature that has provided us with the perfect tiny plants. Plants which are in scale with such a small land. Often, even miniatures of plants we know full size. There are many trees which are the right size and these will age and grow gnarled just as do the giants of the forest.

It really is a fascinating undertaking; the more you think about it the more interesting it becomes. You will find you can do nothing in isolation. A tree on a hill must be a hill tree. A windswept tree must have any trees planted on the same face windswept in the same direction. The slope of the strata in a rock face must be mirrored on the other side of the valley. Once you sense this compatibility you will want to know more; this will lead you to a deeper appreciation of nature's patterns and the underlying order of our natural world. You will start to look more deeply, see more clearly and interpret what you see in your own miniature landscape. The favourite scene, which you know so well, will have to be visited and looked at again, if you decide to put it into your landscape. You will look at it with new eyes, eyes which will see form and essence. You will see the patterns and relationships between one thing and another. You will find a greater love for nature and a deeper appreciation of simple things.

I hope this book will encourage you to create and preserve a real living pattern of an environment in harmony with nature.

I have tried to write a book which tells of the plants, trees, methods and pleasure that anyone can enjoy. I hope it is Alice's bottle marked 'Drink Me' and that it provides that little door to the Wonderland of miniature landscape gardening.

Copies of the first edition of this book are available from the Author at £11.00 by post including postage and packing.

TALKS GIVEN - I would be happy to give talks on the subject for a fixed fee of £50 + expenses.