ABSTRACT
The cottage ornee is a particular class of architect-designed cottage. A product of the Picturesque, like the imitative vernacular-style estate cottage, it is a free composition of irregular expressive forms and appropriated architectural features. The dressing or external appearance of a cottage ornee is instead characterised by an eclectic collage of neoclassical rustic, gothic, Tudor, Indian, Swiss or Italianate details. It is playful design and it is the architecture of play. Cottage designs were subject to stylistic hybridity as neoclassical mixed with gothic or as vernacular merged with Tudor. The main period of cottage ornee building was from the end of the eighteenth century through to the early to mid-nineteenth century. This period saw the aftermath of the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars in Europe restricting Grand Tours and travel to European resorts in Italy and the Alps for British aristocrats and wealthy gentlemen and women.
