a humble rural detached dwelling of a cotter, a semi-independent resident of a manor who had certain residential rights from the lord of the manor, and who in the social hierarchy was a grade above the slave (mentioned in the Domesday Book of 1086), who had no right of tenure and worked full-time to the orders of the lord. In the Domesday Book, they were referred to as Coterelli. The cottage had a small amount of surrounding agricultural land, perhaps 2 or three acres, from which the resident gained his livelihood and sustenance. It was defined by its function of housing a cotter, rather than by its form, which varied, but it was certainly small and cheaply built and purely functional, with no non-essential architectural flourishes. It would have been built from the cheapest locally available materials and in the local style, thus in wheat-growing areas, it would be roofed in thatch, and in slate-rich locations, such as Cornwall, slates would be used for roofing. In stone-rich areas, its walls would be built of rubble stone, and in other areas, such as Devon, was commonly built from cob. Industrial Revolution In England from about the 18th century onwards, the development of industry led to the development of weavers' cottages and miners' cottages. Friedrich Engels cites 'Cottages' as a poor quality dwelling in his 1845 work The Condition of the Working Class in England. Enclosures Act Over the years various English Acts of Parliament removed the right of the cottager to hold land. According to John Lawrence Hammond and Barbara Hammond in their book The Village Labourer, before the Enclosures Act the cottager was a farm labourer with land, and after the Enclosures Act the cottager was a farm labourer without land. Legal definition In the law of England and Wales the definition of a cottage is "a small house or habitation without land". However, originally under an Elizabethan statute, the cottage had to be built with at least of land. Wales The Welsh Tŷ unnos or "house in a night", was built by squatters on a plot of land defined by the throw of an axe from each corner of the property. In Welsh a cottage is known as bwthyn and its inhabitant preswlydd. Scotland In Scotland the equivalent to cottager would be the crofter and the term for the building and its land would be croft. Ireland Irish cottages,