Read the passage and answer the questions

The country is more beautiful than a town and more pleasant to live in. Many people think so, and go to the country for the summer holidays though they cannot live there all the year round. Some have a cottage built in a village so that they can go there whenever they can find the time.

           English villages are not alike, but in some ways they are not very different from one another. Almost every village has a church, the round or square tower if which can be seen from many miles around.

           The village green is a wide stretch of grass, and houses or cottages are built round it. Country life is now fairly comfortable and many villages have running water brought through pipes into each house. Most villages are so close to some small towns that people can go there to buy what they can’t find in the village shops.

Which word is CLOSEST in meaning to the word “cottages” in paragraph 3?