In the early days of housebuilding the use of local materials was naturally a distinctive feature of dwellings of every kind, but more especially in those where expenditure had to be kept within narrow limits. But even in such a case the style of architecture affected in the better built houses influenced and may be traced in the more humble ones. Change amongst our forefathers was even less hastily assumed than in these days, and a style which experience had proved to be convenient was persevered in for generation after generation, individuality seldom having any play, although a necessary adaptation to the site gave to most buildings a distinction of their own. One of the earliest forms, and one still to be found even in buildings which have now descended to the use of yeomen's dwellings, was that of a large central room having on one side of it the smaller living and sleeping rooms, and on the other the kitchens and servants' apartments, the wings projecting sometimes both to back and front, sometimes only to the latter. In later times, as such a house fell into less well-to-do hands, necessity usually compelled the splitting-up of the house into various tenements, in which event the central room was generally divided into compartments, often into a complete dwelling. Types of this kind may be found in most villages in the south-eastern counties, and examples will be seen in "The Six Bells" (Plate 57) and the house at West Tarring, near Worthing (Plate 51), where the central portion falls back from the gabled ends. This arrangement of a central hall used for a living room, after going out of favour for some centuries, is curiously enough once more coming into fashion. Local materials having, as we have said, much to do with the structure, the type of dwelling that we may expect to find in counties where wood was plentiful, and the cost of preparing and putting it on the ground less than that of quarrying, shaping, and carrying stone, is the picturesque, timber-formed cottage. Those interested in the plan of construction, which was always simple, of these will find full details in Mr. Guy Dawber's Introduction to _Old Cottages and Farm Houses in Kent and Sussex_, as well as many illustrations of examples that occur in these counties.