A cottage
is a small house of any period. It is the equivalent
of a modern villa in Europe. Typically, it is a rural
habitation in a village or countryside. Originally,
cottages housed agricultural workers and their families.
The development of industry led to the development
of weavers' cottages and miners' cottages.
A cottage
may also denote a smallholding comprising houses,
outbuildings and supporting farmland or woods. A cottage
in this sense is thought of being barely sufficient
to support one farming family, and would typically
include only a few acres of tilled land.
In North America,
most buildings known as cottages are used for weekend
getaways by city dwellers. They are generally located
near lakes or the ocean in wilderness areas (though
not usually far from amenities) and utilized as a
place to go fishing and hiking.
