APPENDICE
OLD MANORS AND OLD HOUSES
of the Province of Quebec
T HE old cottages and houses of the Province of Quebec may, for
the purposes of this study, be classified into five types according
to the roof shape of each. These are : the gabled roof ; the steep
hipped roof ; the gabled roof with gallery ; the hipped roof with gallery ;
and finally the town house type, with its high parapetted gable walls,
which is similar to the characteristic stone house of the country.
It is in and around Quebec and the Island of Orleans where the earliest settlers built their homes, and though these have long disappeared, it is there where we may look for the oldest types. These are plain rectangular buildings with gabled roofs and a large stone chimney in the centre, an arrangement which is typical of wood constructed houses in which the chimney is built first and then the house planned around it. Sometimes, with a stone chimney in the centre, we find ornamental wooden ones on the gable ends serving no practical purpose. In some, the gables are carried up in stone, but more often the wall stops at eaves-level and the triangular portion of the gable is built of wood. The ancient home of the Jesuits at Sillery, erected in 1637, and now in the custody of the Provincial Government, is of this type, only here the wood framing butts into the chimneys in the gable walls. This treatment with symmetrically disposed windows and sweeping « bell-cast » eaves carried by cantilevered beams forming a roof to the gallery, is a beautiful one. A good example is at Ste. Rose, where a bay-window (an unusual feature) is roofed by the projection of the eaves. Sometimes the cantilevered portion is returned around the ends of the cottage under the gables, forming continuous eaves. The treatment of the verges to the roof in such cases is of typical wooden construction. The boarding upon which the roof covering is nailed, projects over the wall and forms a soffit when the projection is great, sometimes as much as a foot, or when it is slight, the verge is finished with a wood strip set tight against the clap-boarding or shingles. A charming variation to the usual treatment of the gable end is sometimes found in a bonnet-like form of projection at its apex. The ridge of the roof is carried forward over the wall to sometimes as much as three feet, the lower sides are shaped like a double-wave and is a form of protection to the ventilation
