THE COTTAGE INTERIOR

The subdivision of the average rural cottage was simple, essentially there would be a main kitchen-living room, and a second ground-floor room, which could be a parlour. A lean-to at the back acted as a dairy, larder or scullery, or some combination of the three. Frequently the lean-to also contained a copper and served as a wash-house; but more often this was placed in a small additional building, sometimes with a woodshed alongside it. Another vital cottage outbuilding was the pigsty, for most families kept a pig if they could manage to do so.
	The shell of the building was normally one of four main types. Where good materials were scarce or expensive they might be combined, as in the case of the brick –and- flint cottages to be found in counties. External walls were treated internally with a thick application of plaster, which was made from clay, reinforced with cow hair and the sparing use of some lime to help bind the mixture together. Other reinforcement materials were used as well as cow or ox hair; including chopped straw and reeds, horse and goat hair. The plaster was applied in one or two coats and finished with limewash. When you peel the rotting wallpaper off damp cottage walls, you will find that coats of limewash have built up over the years to some considerable thickness and, by careful dissection, you may be able to count how many have been applied. In some cottages, the limewash was brushed straight onto the stonework

Partition walls were made from softwood or hardwood stud framing with riven or sawn laths nailed on to form a base and key for the plaster. Ceilings, when they existed at all, were made in much the same way, but in later cottages they were frequently of thin tongued and grooved softwood matchboarding, which might have very narrow flush beads run along the edges of the boards.