[Illustration: Inscription in the Mermaid Inn, Rye]




CHAPTER IV

IN STREETS AND LANES


I have said in another place that no country in the world can boast of
possessing rural homes and villages which have half the charm and
picturesqueness of our English cottages and hamlets.[10] They have to
be known in order that they may be loved. The hasty visitor may pass
them by and miss half their attractiveness. They have to be wooed in
varying moods in order that they may display their charms--when the
blossoms are bright in the village orchards, when the sun shines on
the streams and pools and gleams on the glories of old thatch, when
autumn has tinged the trees with golden tints, or when the hoar frost
makes their bare branches beautiful again with new and glistening
foliage. Not even in their summer garb do they look more beautiful.
There is a sense of stability and a wondrous variety caused by the
different nature of the materials used, the peculiar stone indigenous
in various districts and the individuality stamped upon them by
traditional modes of building.

[10] _The Charm of the English Village_ (Batsford).

We have still a large number of examples of the humbler kind of
ancient domestic architecture, but every year sees the destruction of