Gertrude Jekyll and the ugly cottage

Gertrude Jekyll had a highly developed aesthetic sense. This has been discussed in another post. The roadside cottage (illustrated) she characterised as one of a class of buildings "worse than plainly ugly - debased by fictitious so-called ornament of the worst class". Only roses are the means by which such ugliness "may be redeemed and even made beautiful".

The little house, although never having any architectural pretension, was not built ugly. As Miss Jekyll explains:

The little house itself has lost much of its true character from the evident alteration of the windows, which would originally have been either lead lights and casements, or, if sash windows, would have had the panes smaller, with rather thick sash-bars. The large panes destroy the proportion and make the house look too small for them. Some ugly flat frames to all the windows, and pediment-shaped additions to the tops of the lower ones, do much to destroy and vulgarise the effect of what must have been a little building with the modest charm of perfect simplicity. The lead-roofed porch is right, and so is the open wooden railing. One cannot but be thankful that when the windows were altered so much for the worse, the railing was not replaced by a cast-iron "ornamental" atrocity.

The person who replaced the windows on this building simply had no sense of proportion and created ugliness where none existed. Miss Jekyll never lived to see the debasement of the architectural profession to the point where persons of no aesthetic training or sensibility are permitted to design buildings. The results would horrify Miss Jekyll and she would prescribe roses left, right and centre.

"A modest dwelling that has no special beauty or character may by a clever use of climbing Roses be converted into a delightful object."

Despite its problem windows and general debasement, the ugly cottage shown above is redeemed by roses. She admits: "No one could pass the roadside cottage shown in the illustration without a thrill of admiration for the free-growing cluster Rose that covers the walls and wreaths the front of the porch."