The model village and its cottages — Reading Notes

Costs and Accommodation as Design Drivers

Harvey anchors his descriptions in specific figures. A block of three cottages built in 1904 cost £293 per cottage for the left-hand and inner houses; the right-hand house, with extra conveniences, cost more. Room dimensions are given to the inch: a parlour of 11 ft. 4 ins. × 15 ft. 3 ins., a living room of 10 ft. × 14 ft. 6 ins. with a bay. The middle house gains a recess between range and small window, which Harvey notes makes a convenient space for a writing table, especially if curtains screen it off—a detail that reveals his attention to the inhabitant's daily life. He distinguishes between houses with identical accommodation and those with improved circulation, such as a hall that prevents the living room from being a passage room.

Materials, Texture, and Colour in Mass

Harvey's aesthetic principles emerge in practical advice. On the three-cottage block, the inner house is covered with rough-cast, contrasting with the outer ones of plain brickwork. Rough-cast, he says, is economical and effective, brightening the forecourt. He warns against introducing a variety of colour upon exteriors: colour is best disposed in masses, treated broadly, not distributed in isolated portions or sharply contrasting tints. The roof uses green slates of varying sizes, diminishing towards the ridge. These choices are not arbitrary; they respond to the site's axis, which runs south-west and north-east, commanding a view of the Lickey Hills.

Planning for Aspect and Site

Harvey consistently relates each cottage block to its site. A shallow corner site receives a pair of semi-detached, double-fronted cottages, their plan similar to the middle house of an earlier block. Another pair, planned on the same lines, is placed at right angles instead of lengthwise to occupy a corner position. Aspect is studied: the front of the three-cottage block commands a pleasing perspective of a principal Bournville road and the Lickey Hills. Harvey does not treat plans as abstract diagrams; each responds to orientation, view, and the constraints of the plot.

Fittings and the Inhabitant's Experience

Beyond structure, Harvey notes specific fixtures. Two houses in the three-cottage block are fitted with Cornes’ Patent Combined Scullery-Bath-Range and Boiler, described on page 52; the third has the Cabinet bath. The recess in the middle house, near the range, becomes a warm and cosy retreat in winter—a phrase that hints at how the architect imagines the cottage being lived in. The forecourt formed by the projection of the two outside houses, he writes, may be made very pleasing. These small observations, scattered among dimensions and costs, show Harvey's concern for the inhabitant's comfort and the visual harmony of the street.

Harvey's book is best read as a working architect's portfolio, not a theoretical treatise. The 57 plates—plans, views, details—are the core; the text annotates them. Readers interested in the social history of housing will find precise data on costs and rents; those studying design will note how Harvey balances economy with amenity. The book's value lies in its specificity: a record of what was actually built, at what price, and with what reasoning.

There is something almost tender in Harvey’s measurements—every brick and beam of Bournville set down with care, as if he were describing a friend’s face. It makes me think of how the old Roman villas must have felt to their owners, not just grand, but known. That quieter intimacy lingers in Romance of Roman Villas (The Renaissance) — Context and Discussion, and I find myself returning to both. Strange, the company a shelf keeps.