Build Week 9, 3rd June 2019
Build week 9 is all about finishing the roof structure, starting out on the thatching and the walls.
But first, a Team Photo!
Now that we understood how to effectively attach the hazel spars onto the roof using our sisal square lashings, we were able to progress with the roof much faster.
As we get higher on the roof, we opt for wearing climbing harnesses. I found it helped stop my knees from trembing overly much.
We took delivery of the Water Reed bundles that we would be using as thatching material for our roof. We have no idea or evidence as to what our Beeston Castle Bronze Age counterparts would have used as roofing materials. We believe that the surrounding areas would have been very marshy land and so the use of Reed or Rush is a definite possibility.
Our reed came from somewhere in eastern europe. I’m not sure why, but something was mentioned about availability and price.
This is just one-third of the delivery. There was a second, fully loaded trailer with more bales of water reed.
A more detailed view of our water reed thatching material.
Exciting as the thatch delivery was, it then dawns on us that all of these thatch bundles aren’t going to carry themselves from Beeston Castle Showground up the hill to the Roundhouse. And so, the task begins of moving the bundles up the hill. Some of the bundles have been damaged or come loose during transport and so need to be re-assembled and re-tied before we dare attempt to move them. This is going to be a long job.
As well as working on the roof, work has also begun on the walls.
We don’t know what the Beeston Castle Bronze Age Roundhouses would have had for walls. Again no evidence. But evidence from other sites indicate that wattle and daub was used for some buildings. Wattle and daud is what we are going to do.
Wall construction begins by using the thinner pieces of hazel that were unsuitable for our roof to become the wattle of our wattle and daud walling system. Another view of our partially completed wattle walls. Question: should there be windows?
Once we have completed the application of the Hazel spars to the roof and we have attached the first part of the thatch, the thatch roll (the big bolster affair on the eaves), we decide to have a break and a quick team photo.
Everybody off the ground!
So, now we can start to thatch
From our first applications of thatch it seems that we are going to need 3 bundles of reed per horizontal meter and each row will gain us 30cm of height. We sat down to calculate the total number of bundles of thatch we were going to need at this rate. Several headaches later we decided that that was a lot of thatch and we had best crack on!
The fine weather we have enjoyed throught out May has now come to an end. But at least we have provided ourselves with some shelter.
Let’s finish off with a little video of what has been going on this week.
Last modified on 2019-06-09