Part 3 (1/2)

_COB_

-- I GENERAL

If ever the counties of England recover their bygone loyalty to their ownwill return to Devon and the West Cheap bricks, cheap transport, and the ignoble rage for fashi+ons from the toent far to oust provincial cob from the affections of those whom, with their forbears, it had housed so well for several centuries

Whether the new loyalty be from within, or be imposed from without by force of circumstances, matters little What does matter is the fact of its revival

For with it will coes that are knit inties consanguineous with the ground they stand on, be it brick-earth, rock, or common soil

The soil of Devonshi+re and of many parts of Wessex and of Wales serves excellently well for building in cob or ”clom”[3]

[Footnote 3: Probably, indeed, there is no county in the kingdom that has not considerable areas where the soil would, if tried, prove well adapted for cob-building]

The soil itself suggested the construction, and the men of Wessex were quick to take the hint and to act on it

The yeomen and small-holders of earlier days were commonly builders too, and often built their own hoht of local tradition

Thus the old Devonian countryman in need of a house would set to and build it himself--of stone if that were handy and easily worked, of cob if it were not

No doubt the doors and ould be er himself would thatch or slate the roof as naturally and successfully as he built

The skill and care hich these versatile ahest, and careless construction, like other sins, is visited on the children--the worse the sooner

Thus it is that there are to-day plenty of old cob cottages that are both daeneral because certain old builders were careless, ignorant, or incompetent is to condemn all materials from wattle and daub to ferro-concrete in the sahly accoood nature in being ”put upon” and in being asked to stand what is quite beyond its powers of endurance, and yet Devon cob houses of Elizabethan date are not uncoms it does require--dry foundations and a good protecting roof

To quote an old Devonshi+re saw on cob--”Giv'un a gude hat and pair of butes an' 'er'l last for ever”

In many instances the Devonshi+re leaseholder, usually only a ”life-lease” holder, built badly and on indifferent foundations He neglected to repair his thatch, with the consequence that ruin followed sooner or later He did not always use rough-cast, so that it often happened that by the time the lease expired the unfortunate landowner found that the cottage fell in--in the literal as well as in the legal sense The lower portions of the walls were honey-coed out or fissures resulted fro presented that appearance of squalor and s of Devon as relics of bygone barbarism But if adequate care is bestowed on the construction, there is no reason why cob cottages should not prove at one and the same time comfortable to the inenerations

[Illustration: +Another view of the Cob House built by Mr Ernest Gih Salterton, Devon+ _See Frontispiece_]

[Illustration: +A fine Specimen of a Devonshi+re Cob House+]

[Headnote: The Beauty of Cob]

As to their co that, a glance at the printed pictures will tell all that need be told

That the beauty of cob buildings is not dueproduced by the passage of tiraphs of Mr Gie, taken soon after he had finished it

The as done a year or two before the war; this is Mr Gi: