Puddling - take two

Who knew that finding the right consistency for daub would be so difficult? Too much sand and it crumbles. Too much clay and it cracks. The 80/20 sand to clay rule doesn't seem to apply, so we're on our second attempt (the first lot gave way almost entirely and had to be pulled down) and now that it's starting to dry, crevices are appearing. We hope they're only superficial - winter will let us know, no doubt...

Here are some photos of Clare and Aideen mixing the daub and applying it:

Current roundhouse status!

At the moment, I'm waiting for the floods to recede so I can go down the field and finish the walls with cob. Cob (or daub) is made by mixing clay subsoil, straw, sand and water together in a process known as puddling. Then you schlap it on the wattle and poke it with your fingers and pray it'll hold. It's messy work! I started back in the summer, but the mix was wrong (yet another lesson!) and it crumbled off in chunks in the snow, so I have to start from scratch. Here are some photos from the first dodgy batch:

Wattling...

The next step was to wattle the walls with willow saplings. It was a lot of work! Willow was harvested from coppiced trees in the field and from a willow tree that had split and formed an island in the middle of the river. We had to swim upstream with loppers and a length of rope and climb the tree to get to the willow, then bind it up and drag it downstream. Lots of fun :)

The roundhouse gets going!

Sorry for the delay, folks... This is the first of a bunch of new posts. We'll be up to speed soon!

In May 2010, I started constructing a bronze age-style wattle and daub roundhouse in the River Field. The first picture shows the planning permission request submitted to the fairies: two stones, one small one on top of a big one, left out overnight... thankfully none of them were knocked over. That means permission was granted!