Cheap Cottages.

Progress, Volume II, Issue 7, 1 May 1907, Page 267

Cheap Cottages.

It is a subject much discussed here in connection with the government policy of building cottages for the workers. The general opinion has been so far against the possibility of doing the work at a cost remunerative to the worker, for v^hose benefit the work is designed. The following extract from the Essex Weekly News throws some interesting and hopeful light on the question. Number one says :—: — " There are few social questions of more importance than that of providing decent houses for artisans and labourers at rents bearing a re9sonable proportion to their means, and any experiments in this direction arc always interesting. A good deal was made of the cottages erected in the Garden City ; but Mr. Sanger Tucker, of Glencairn, Sandon, claims to have gone one step further and demonstrated in practice the possibility of erecting a commodious detached cottage for £160, apart from the cost of the site. The building contains three bedrooms upstairs, two sitting-rooms, and out-Offices. The water has been laid on, and proper sanitary arrangements have been provided. All the floors are in pitch pine, and the rooms are well lighted. The cottage is not quite completed, but it is not too early to ask why that which is possible at Sandon should not be possible elsewhere." Why indeed ? In the second extract Mr. R. Mawhood, architect, of Chelmsford, refers to several pairs of five-room cottages which have been built in various villages — viz., Chignall, Good Easter, Blarkmore, and the Woodhams, each containing a living-room and kitchen. 12ft. square, a large front bedroom, and two small ones at the back ; with pantry, coal and wood house, and cesspool and drainage, the cost of which has varied from £275 to £325 per pair. He adds that he also could have a single cottage of five rooms built for £160, provided the bricks, gravel, and sand were within two miles of the site.