Cottages Ornés The Charms of the Simple Life by Roger White

Nothing else in the english, Irish, Scottish countryside is more beauty and suggestive than a cottage.
This little or also big building, house, most time created with stones or brick is immersed in the peaceful British countryside and it speaks to the heart of people of tranquil moments, serenity, joy, happiness; of a life where the time is timeless; these buildings are in fact romantic, old-fashioned and researched thanks to the poeticity that they transmit.

This book Cottages Ornés The Charms of the Simple Life by Roger White published by Yale University Press is an enchanting trip in the essence of cottages ornés.

Cottages Ornés are typically British, "exported" later thanks to the expansionistic and colonial policy of UK  in the USA, in particular in the East Coast, with wonderful examples in Martha's Vineyard Massachusetts, but also in Oceania, Wales, Scotland and Ireland.
Some of them have been built by rich people and in this case it is possible to "track" the cottage's realization, what the owner desired. For working and middle-class people it was a different story, because generally they found the cottage built, most times not orné; it was up to them what they wanted to do with it and the interior was up to the taste of the family.

Some towns are spectacularly beauty with these little houses that you would say that they're part of another universe; like to enter in a fairy-tale. I proved that when I saw what created the town of Shanklin in the Isle of Wight. Sometimes a house or more houses can make a difference, because they present beauty and a harmonic fusion with the landscape in grade to speak to the heart.

Plenty informative and divided in ten chapters, Cottages Ornés covers all the aspects of these buildings. Born after twenty years of researches, Cottages Ornés is not just a tome rich of anecdotes, architecture, styles, historical periods, but ,last but not least also the story of the fascination created by these little, peaceful houses during the centuries.

Highly recommended to everyone.

I thank Yale University Press for the physical copy of this book.

Anna Maria Polidori