IT may well be objected that this is a mere journalese title, for the influence of motoring on the appearance of the countryside is not always apparent, and many other factors have been at work, among them the Great War and its considerable legacy of troubles. Moreover, some readers may point out that motor-cars were to be seen in England long before 1910. That is true; but they did not appreciably alter our countryside before that date, and the number of them was relatively small.

The most obvious influence that motoring has exerted on England has been in the direction of road “improvements,” especially since the War. Few of us foresaw that the clumsy and not very speedy vehicles which made their first appearance on our highways some thirty years ago, preceded by a man bearing a red flag, would eventually cause so radical a change in our ideas of the nature of a road. For a long time nothing happened. As motors increased in number and speed and bulk, they continued to become more and more of a nuisance to the cyclists and pedestrians and horse-drawn vehicles still forming the majority of road-users. Clouds of dust whitened the hedges, and choked the inhabitants of all houses anywhere near a main highway. Accidents became frequent. All this was unavoidable, because even the best roads made by Telford and Macadam were unequal to the new conditions, and the far larger number of narrow winding country lanes were altogether inadequate for the strain that was now put upon them. An excellent instance of the resulting state of affairs may still be seen in the Isle of Wight, where several of the “main” roads are tortuous narrow lanes sunk between high banks topped with thick hedges. In the summer months a stream of huge charabancs tears over the whole island every day. At many places there is no possibility of these Juggernauts passing each other. Even a hay-cart presents such a complete obstacle that one or other vehicle has to back till the road widens, and in places the blockage caused by the charabanc forces a cyclist or a pedestrian to climb up on to the steep grassy bank while the monster with its cargo of yelling hooligans pushes past him. Either roads must be widened almost everywhere or motor vehicles of all types must be abolished, and, as the latter alternative is out of the question, we must accept the former as inevitable. How it may be effected with the minimum of damage to the beauty of our countryside will be discussed in the next chapter. England has not yet sunk to the level of the Western States, where it is a simple matter to shift a barbed-wire fence a few yards back on each side of the furrows that do duty for a road, and where the iron or wooden shacks that constitute a “home” may readily be wheeled to a new site on the prairie. England is a crowded little country full of sacred associations that go back to the beginnings of our race, and that is why we hate to see crazy new bungalows lining the Pilgrim’s Way. Their very appearance is an insult to our English sense of orderliness and decency, such as we should feel if a negro cheapjack started selling mouth-organs in Canterbury Cathedral.

In some parts of the country there are stretches of road that can be widened without material defacement of the landscape, but they are few. Ancient landmarks hamper progress in most places. Old bridges, for example, are altogether unsuited to heavy and fast motor-traffic. Often built askew with the line of a main road, they are nearly always very steep, very narrow, and, though often sturdy in appearance, are incapable of bearing the weight of a heavy lorry and trailer moving with the speed of a railway train. Here again is a problem requiring solution. Some people would attempt to adapt the old bridge to modern needs, others prefer an entirely new structure placed parallel with the old one, and, of course, the third alternative is complete demolition. The first method is generally impossible, and there is much to be said for a frankly modern design in reinforced concrete, provided that it does not stand in too close proximity to the ancient monument that it supersedes.

Another familiar rural feature that must perforce give way to the insistent needs of the motorist is the ford or “watersplash.” Much as we may regret its disappearance, it has to go.

But most difficult of all is the question of dealing with the narrow High Street of a town or village through which a main artery passes. Occasionally the jerry-builder has anticipated us here, and has erected some terrible Victorian nightmare of a shop right up to the old building-line of the historical cottages that he has demolished. In such a case the children of the Petrol Age may be able to expiate the sins of their fathers by pulling down that shop. But more often there is a building of real merit standing at the very bottleneck through which the procession of traffic has to squeeze its way, such as the old church at Barnet or the Whitgift Hospital at Croydon; and then we are in a quandary, impressed on the one hand by the legitimate needs of our time, deterred on the other hand by an almost religious sense of the sanctity of the past. Sometimes the obstacle is a mere cottage, a barn, a pump, a stone cross, or a quaint structure such as blocks Hampstead Lane near the Spaniard’s Tavern, yet even these must be treated with respect. The “by-pass” road, as suggested in the next chapter, is sometimes the best solution, but is not practicable everywhere. And lastly, there are the trees. As I write these lines I can hear the crashes of falling elms and yews that I have known since childhood. A snorting tractor is pulling them down bodily with a steel hawser, so that the grass-lined lane that runs near my home may be widened for the growing needs of what was once a pretty village.

But a wide straight road does not exhaust the motorist’s requirements. He becomes thirsty at times, and the village inn has already risen to the occasion, usually, it must be admitted, without detriment to the village street. The architecture of licensed premises is looking up. His car also becomes thirsty, (hence the petrol-station), and its occasional liability to gastric trouble involves the provision at frequent intervals of telephone-cabins and repair-shops or garages. We may profitably consider the design of these accessories and their relation to country surroundings in the next chapter. The phenomenal development in the use of motor charabancs has involved the provision of extensive “parking-places” in all pleasure resorts, e.g., at Brighton, where a large part of the sea-view from the Esplanade is blocked. The provision of a “park” at Glastonbury has led to an outcry recently, and everywhere the problem is pressing.

Finally comes the very vexed question of housing, municipal and private, that has grown so acute since the War. In this movement the motorist has played a prominent part, for he has helped to extend the “Housing Problem,” from its obvious location on the fringes of our towns, away to the remoter parts of the country. From Kent to Hampshire the bungalows line our southern cliffs. Housing needs may be divided into three groups: those of the townsman, the rustic, and the week-ender. The first concerns us here only to the extent that new housing in urban districts must of necessity be provided in the adjoining rural areas: thus London is now so congested that its County Council has had to acquire large estates in Essex, Kent, and Middlesex to provide houses for city workers, who are quite properly dissatisfied with the tenement-dwellings that are their only alternative. Then, although in many country districts the population is decreasing, new standards of decency impel the newly-wed to demand something better than the leaking and verminous hovels where their parents dwell. All these new houses, whether in country or town, have been provided in increasing proportion by municipal enterprise since the War, and hence their design is subject to a measure of control. Whether that control is sufficient to ensure a tolerable standard of architectural expression is a matter for further consideration: at this point it is important to realise that practically all the post-War “Housing Schemes” have been scientifically laid out on rational lines, with due regard for the future. It is that central control, whether exercised by a public body or by a properly constituted private organisation, which makes all the difference between the “lay-out” of Becontree or Port Sunlight on the one hand and an average bungalow settlement on the other. One is a design, the other an accident,—and the Italian word for “accident” is disgrazia!

Some sixteen years ago I endeavoured to interest the inhabitants of the district where I live in the possibilities of the then newly-passed Town-Planning Act. The more enlightened among them readily responded, but there were some who said that this was a rural area and that they had no wish to see it turned into a town. Since then it has turned itself into something resembling a town, but its growth has been spasmodic and irregular. A few years later came a proposal to acquire two fields in the centre of the district for a public park. Again the objectors appeared; what does a semi-village need with a public park, at a high price too? Fortunately the fields were acquired, and already they are nearly encircled by building plots. Meanwhile a great Arterial Road has been driven right across the new park, cutting it in half and reducing its attractions. Under a proper town-planning scheme such things would be impossible. Roads and parks would be laid out on paper years before they were required; and, though modifications of the first plan would become necessary from time to time, the ultimate gain would be enormous. Groups of adjoining authorities are already preparing regional town-planning schemes in concert, so that trunk roads may be provided in such a way as to pass through each area to its benefit and not to its detriment. If “Rusticus” stands too long while the river flows by, as the quotation on my title-page suggests, he will find the countryside engulfed.

In my last chapter something was said of the possibilities that the new science of Town-planning has to offer us, as a result of many years’ experience and experiment. We have seen the appearance of innumerable municipal housing-schemes, of “Satellite Towns” like Letchworth and the new Welwyn, of model industrial communities like Bournville and Port Sunlight, of communal efforts like the Hampstead Garden Suburb, of many admirable achievements in the developments of private enterprise. Originating at the time (1876 et seq.) when Bedford Park was laid out, the idea developed slowly before the War and has made great strides since. It is one of the brightest spots in the history of English progress, but it has not been sufficient to stem the rush of ersatz building that followed the War.

For it is the bungalow craze, with all that it now implies, which has most seriously damaged the appearance of rural England during the last eight years. There is nothing inherently unpleasant in the bungalow type of house. Properly designed and constructed, it may be made a thing of beauty harmonising perfectly with its surroundings. But, to my mind, its advantages have been grossly exaggerated. On the count of cost, the primary consideration nowadays, it shows no superiority over the two-floor house; reasonable privacy for its bedrooms is secured with difficulty; and it is apt to sprawl over the ground. One cannot quite realise why it has been so much favoured in recent years; possibly it is merely a transient fashion, like face-powder or crinolines. There was a great and a genuine demand for houses after the War, which had to be satisfied. Nine people out of ten took what they could get, and they got bungalows. For the most part their ménage consisted of husband, wife, and a two-seater. Neither servants nor children entered into the picture. There was a prejudice against everything connected with the pre-War period, especially with its social distinctions, and perhaps the ex-service man sought for the antithesis of the suburban villa. Accustomed for four years to scenes of ruin and to leaky Army huts, his mind readily accepted the slap-dash bungalow with its familiar barbed-wire fence and no-man’s-land of a garden. The effect of flimsiness and impermanence that characterises so many of these little buildings may be ascribed to three causes: the difficulty of paying for a house and a car out of an income that only provided a house before the War, the prevalent restlessness which almost rejects the idea of settling down in one place and letting oneself “take root,” and the insidious hold that the architecture of dumps and sheds had gained on the average man’s mind in 1914-18. His two-seater carried him out into what was (at first) the peace of the country, where land was cheap. Run up at express speed to satisfy an enormous demand, these bungalows spread out for miles along the roads adjoining the towns, thus avoiding the road-making charges that have to be met on an ordinary estate. And next this “ribbon” development continued far out into the country, so that people who had a slight surplus after meeting their hire-purchase payments for car and furniture could enjoy a sight of the sea on Saturday and Sunday from a bungalow perched on the Sussex cliffs. Thus this singular movement has had its main effect in rural districts, whose little Councils, with their often rudimentary by-laws, find the problem almost beyond their power to solve.

For these bungalows are for the most part designed without knowledge or taste, without regard to the tradition of English architecture or the claims of the English landscape. They are generally built of flimsy machine-made materials, largely imported from abroad. Yet they have satisfied a perfectly legitimate demand for accommodation, they have been erected honestly by builders and paid for by their owners, and they have so far complied with the laws of the land that they have earned a Government “subsidy” towards their cost. Hence the bungalow, which many of us regard as the motorist’s least acceptable gift to the countryside, constitutes a topic which must be criticised with extreme tact and caution.

There must be many beauty-spots in England that have been spoilt by motorists and charabancs since the War, but as a fair case one may cite X—— in Romney Marsh. A few years ago this was an artists’ paradise and a haven of peace. It has now become a glorified bus-park, where one is surrounded by petrol-pumps, garages, blatant exorbitant cafés run by loud-voiced aliens, “souvenir” shops full of Brummagem and German products, ice-carts, and innumerable direction-posts to “ladies’ cloak rooms.” All the charm of the place has gone in bribes to the tripper, and when he tires of it the ugliness will remain. When one sees a beautiful village or landscape prostituted to such ends, one wishes that the petrol-engine had never been invented.

But is ugliness an inevitable concomitant of motoring? Last April it was my good fortune to travel some 200 miles over the main roads of Tuscany. In that considerable distance I saw not a single petrol-station, and hardly a poster or a hoarding. The petrol-pumps must have been there, but at any rate they were not obtrusive enough to attract notice. Some people may say that the apparent absence of these accessories of civilisation furnishes an additional proof of Italian backwardness, others that the iron hand of Mussolini prevents progress; but to me, as a lover of Italy, it is a satisfaction that she has contrived to reconcile the legitimate needs of to-day with the beauty of her countryside.