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The Plan.

The general plan of Port Sunlight shows now an inhabited area
nearly a mile long by nearly half that wide, bounded on the longer
sides by the new Chester Road (on the east) and the main railway
lines to London, and Greendale Road (on the west). (See No. 39.)

22. BEBINGTON ROAD COTTAGES.

W. & S. OWEN,

Architects.

There is enough variety of level to avoid the monotony of an entirely
flat area, and one piece of natural dell, well grown over with trees and
shrubs, forms a delightful feature near the Works end of the village.
Goods from the Works are loaded, on the one side, into railway
wagons, and on the other into barges on the Bromborough Pool, from
which they emerge into the River Mersey. From this pool there
used to be gutters or ravines, up which the muddy tidal water
flowed right up into where the village now stands, but these have
all been cut off from the tide and, with the exception of the dell
above referred to, filled up.

One very notable innovation on the common practice of estate
development is the fronting of houses towards the railway instead
of the long lines of unlovely backs which usually exhibit all their
unhappy privacies to the railway passengers. Though one long
thoroughfare—the Greendale Road—runs alongside the railway
embankment for the greater part of a mile, one cannot feel it to be
other than one of the pleasantest roads on the estate. One of the
illustrations indicates the excellent result here obtained.

23. COTTAGES, POOL BANK.

WILSON AND TALBOT,

Architects.

Every intelligent student of town-planning knows that you
cannot rule out a number of rectangular plots arranged on axial lines
without due consideration of varying levels and a proper expression
of local features. Moreover, the planning of many right-angled
plots is not in itself a very desirable aim. But at Port Sunlight
it was possible to create some rectangular spaces with the Art
Gallery and the Church on their axial lines in such a way as to make
a striking and orderly scheme as a central feature in the estate.
There are numbers of winding or diagonal roads which give variety
and interest and afford pleasant lines of perspective to the groups
of houses.

In an especial way one might claim that the best results in the
planning of a new village will be obtained through bearing in mind

24. COTTAGES, POOL BANK.

DOUGLAS AND MINSHALL,

Architects

25. HULME HALL.

W. & S. OWEN,

Architects.

the classical saying, "Ars est celare artem." In such a scheme
we do not wish to be confronted with buildings of ponderous
dignity or a big display of formal lines and places. Anything
approaching ostentation or display is surely out of place, and what
we want is something expressing the simplicity and unobtrusiveness
which is the tradition handed down to us through the charm of the
old English village. This is best attained by variety in direction of
roads and shapes of houses by forming unexpected corners, recessed
spaces, and winding vistas.