A COTTAGE, or keeper's house, was deemed necessary at Apsley Wood, about three miles from Woburn Abbey. The Duke of Bedford (to whom I am indebted for numerous opportunities of displaying his good taste) one day observed, that out of the numerous cottages called Gothic, which everywhere present themselves near the high roads, he had never seen one which did not betray its modern character and recent date. At the same time, his Grace expressed a desire to have a cottage of the style and date of buildings prior to the reign of Henry VIII., of which only some imperfect fragments now remain. Adjoining to this building, an attempt has been made to assimilate a garden to the same character, and the foregoing plates [figs. 162 and 163] will furnish an example of both. A communication of some curious specimens of timber-houses was made to the Society of Antiquaries, in 1810, which was ordered to be engraved and printed for the Arch�ologia. But this building does more than any drawing to exemplify many of the parts which have been thus rescued from the effects of time.
