Great progress made with thatching

Today was the first day of the school workshops that we are running. All the children seemed to enjoy the chance to work on the buildings.

On building 851 our thatching team have now completed almost three quarters of the roof. We only have a little way to go before the building is watertight.

The thatch is nearly complete on building 851.

The sheltered doorway on building 848 progressed today with a hooped section being attached over the doorway and supplementary rafters added. To create a strong framework extra bands of hazel are being woven in at the same levels as on the main structure.

Les, Rosemary and Richard forming the doorway on building 848.

On the other side of building 848 we have continued to add to the weave and we are now almost at the top!

The woven roof section on building 848.

Chalk crushing starts again!

We have made amazing progress with the daubing on building 851 and, as a result of us using a large amount of chalk in the daub, we have had to start on the chalk crushing again. Much to everyone’s delight!

The ever shrinking chalk pile.

Building 848 has been progressing nicely with the team adding to the hazel weave on one side and added more bands on the other. We are now working on creating a sheltered doorway. After this has been completed we can start on covering the roof.

Wendy, Bob, Lisa and Les constructing the doorway on building 848.

The progress made on building 848.

We are starting to apply daub

Most of the volunteers have spent their morning preparing the thatch ready for the roof of building 851. We are using the wheat straw on the roof as quickly as it can be prepared!
After lunch they moved on to daubing a large section of wall around the door using the crushed chalk from earlier in the project.

Suzanne applies the daub to the wall of building 851.

As building 848 is also having experimental sections of roofing material applied, the structure underneath is being constructed using two different methods. We are weaving hazel completely up one side of the structure and weaving bands of hazel on the other. This reflects the different types of material that are being used to cover it.

The woven section of building 848.

Thatching continues

We have been working on the thatch on building 851, continuing the layers that we started yesterday. We added two more layers which has now covered the walls meaning that we can start daubing fairly soon.

A view from under the eaves of building 851, the hazel woven into the wall can be seen on the right.

Looking down on the thatched eaves of building 851.

On building 848 we have woven several layers around at the bottom of the structure. We will continue to weave layers up the rafters to provide a base for attaching the thatch.

A view across the site with the woven bands of building 848 on the left.

First layer of thatch on building 851

Today we were mainly concentrating on buildings 851 and 848.

Our first job was to set the horizontal spacing of the woven hazel on the eaves of building 851, so the thatch can be attached, we also completed the eave over the door. After this we added a roll of wheat straw to the bottom of the eaves, and then the first layer of thatch.

Janey and Harald fit the wheat straw roll.

Fitting the first layer of thatch to building 851.

On building 848 we fitted the secondary rafters and wove hazel around the bottom to lock everything in place. Another weave of hazel was added half way up the rafters to which the shorter rafters were then attached.

All the rafters are in on building 848.

The thatching starts

As we are now in April we were expecting the temperature to rise, but instead it seems to be getting colder. We had snow blowing across the site today on a strong north easterly wind, making us wonder when spring would be arriving!

We have started thatching building 547! We are testing the section of roof that we constructed yesterday, which has been very successful, with three layers of thatch completed by the end of our day.

Three layers of thatch completed on building 547.

We also completed another of the experimental roof sections on building 547 today, this is the third quarter that we are going to try. In this section we have woven the hazel into the rafters diagonally rather than horizontally, purposefully keeping the brash on just as we tried on the wall section on this building earlier in the project. We are hoping to see whether this type of roof structure is as strong as the others that we have tried, and also to see what thatching materials will work on it.

Richard, Lisa and John admiring their work.

Reaching the top

Gareth and Guy enjoy the view from the top of building 851.

Today we finished weaving the hazel rods to the top of building 851, we will spend the next few days tidying up the top ridge section before beginning the thatching next week.

The view from inside building 851.

We have also finished the roof structure on the second quarter of building 547. As can be seen the weaving has only been completed to half way up the roof, this is because we are testing different thatching methods on the whole building. As a result it will be very difficult to join the different methods together, so we are just going to thatch sections.

The experimental woven roof section on building 547.

The sun makes an appearance

It was great to see everyone this morning looking raring to go after the Easter break, even the sun made an appearance!

We have finished the roof structure on one of the quarters of building 547, with all of the ring beams being beautifully lashed with willow. This will be one of the roof sections that we will be experimenting with thatching methods.

Completed experimental roof section on building 547.

Another of the roof quarters on building 547 that we are going to experiment with was also started today. This section is being woven in a similar way to building 851, but the roof structure is different, there is no ridge section on this building. This roof also requires that we weave as carefully as we did on building 851, as all the rafters are fixed at the top.

Stuart, Claire, Denise and Trevor weave another roof section on building 547.

End of the fourth week

The re-tying of the roof on building 851 was completed this morning, allowing us to now weave all the way to the top. The weaving has been continuing and we are now about a third of the way up the rafters. We should see this part of the roof finished during next week.

Looking up at the southern end of building 851.

On building 547 we have been fitting some of the ring beams to one of it’s quarters in preparation for the thatching to start. These are being fitted at regular intervals so that when the thatch is attached it creates a sufficient overlap, encouraging water to run off, rather than through the roof. As you can see from the photo we have been lashing the ring beams on with willow.

Paul, Briony, Janey and Richard attaching the ring beams with willow.

This is our last day before a well deserved Easter break, we will start back again next Tuesday, invigorated and raring to go.

More about roofs

We have been working on all three buildings today.

On building 848 we have been learning to thatch in a more traditional method, by tying the thatch to the roof. This is the first time that any of our volunteers had thatched and the results were very good, and to make things more interesting, we were also tying the thatch on with willow.

Tying the thatch to building 848.

With building 851 we have been continuing with weaving the roof. We have also re-tied the ridge pole and adjusted the rafters, creating a more symmetrical roof.

The re-tied roof of building 851 with the facing southern side still to finish.

We took the birch rafters off of building 547 as they weren’t quite long enough to give the roof pitch that we need. We have replaced them with longer larch poles and are now going to test different construction methods on the quarters that we have created.

The main rafters in place.