Welsh Journals

opportunities for getting across the hills without much zigzagging. These two series of roads will provide nearly all the main through communi- cation roads that are practicable in a hilly country. Between them, to develop the areas left untouched, subsidiary roads will be required, to give access to the buildings, and these should connect up with the main series of roads but it should be recog- nized that they are not through traffic roads, and, both in their planning and character, the buildings which they serve should be first considered. On hilly ground, it is most economical for building purposes that the road should run either at right angles to the contour lines or approximately along these lines. Often for the purpose of communication and to obtain a better gradient up the hill, the road must run diagonally across the contour lines, but, for the purpose of building, this type of road has the greatest disadvantages. Buildings must always be more expensive on a hillside. Greater depth of founda- tions on one side will be required,and gardens can only be formed with a certain amount of terracing, levelling, and the employment of retaining walls and steps. But all the difficulties are increased when the slope is diagonally across the line of buildings, and the difficulty of planning gardens particularly is aggravated. On sloping sites economy requires that the building should be long on the level line, and shallow in depth in the sloping direction. If we look at the development which is taking place under modem by- laws in Welsh towns and villages, we find that nearly everything is being done in the most unsuitable manner. Where the roads run along the hillside, the buildings are deep in the direction of the slope, and narrow on the level frontage. They project far into the bank behind on one side of the road, so that light, air and outlook are alike wanting for the windows the main living rooms are usually placed at the back, and, too often, open into a small yard, with a 10 or 12 foot bank and retaining wall as the sole prospect. On the other side of the road, owing to the width of roadway required by the by-laws, the house must either have cellar dwell- ings in the lower part, or be piled up on most expensive foundations, so high that, in some cases, one may see two storeys of rooms below the level of the road. This three or four story building, not content with blocking its neighbour's view, exposes the whole of its shabby, too often squalid, back to the full view of anyone looking at the hill side. Thus there is attained a maximum degree of ugliness, for by the nature of the ground, as you travel along the roads or railways in the valley, and look up each side, you can see nothing but tier upon tier of backs with their projecting outbuildings. All this springs from the attempt to build on these steep hill sides as if they were level. There is not even any economy of cost to justify this method. Indeed, it is the most expensive method of development, and it is due to the costliness of building in this way on the steep hill side that the owners of limited patches of level land are able to demand such high prices for it. If, instead of this arrange- ment, the plan were adopted of arranging the terraces of buildings at a fair distance apart, one above another on the south slopes, the houses having a long frontage and shallow depth, then all the main rooms would look out over the best view, no part of the house need be buried in the hill-side, and a few feet of excavation at the back would suffice. The lesser conveniences, larder, coals and