Our weekly Horton House blog posts from earlier this year were interrupted by… well we all know what! Thankfully since lockdown we have been able to slowly resume our experimental archaeology work on the farm, and thanks to the funding we have received from the UK Government Culture Recovery Fund, we will now be able to complete our Horton House construction over the Winter!

Here our Archaeologist Claire Walton sums up some of the latest steps we have bee taken on the build…

If there was one things I learned during lockdown, it was that the world is a particularly beautiful place without the sound of cars, engines and aeroplanes. With engines silenced, lockdown took tranquillity to a new level. It gave me the opportunity to think about what the Neolithic might have sounded like, although of course, Neolithic life wasn’t always quiet. In fact, if it was anything like the last two weeks here at the Horton house site, it would have been a collection of very productive noises, from axes on wood, to daub being slapped, with the hum of conversation and discussion going on in the background. We are re-focused and re-energised, determined to push on and complete our Neolithic house before winter sets in.

On Friday last week Will received some instruction and a tutorial from Lyle Morgans, Master Thatcher, on how we can create a ridge along the apex of the house. The completion of this part of the thatch will mean the building is completely waterproof. While our choice of reed for the house is supported by the landscape in which the original house was situated, and also works on a practical level due to its longevity, we have discovered one issue. When thatching in reed, one would normally use wheat straw to create the ridge. This is because reed does not bend enough, and would simply break if we tried to create a ridge using the normal technique. However, due to several poor harvests, there is now a serious shortage of thatching straw. So, just like Neolithic people we had to get creative. We’re using a far less common, but no less effective method. By creating long ‘sausages’ of reed, tied together into bundles, we have been able to pack out the top of the roof where the two sides of reed thatch meet.

Over this sausage, we will lay more reed, with the feathery end facing down towards the ground. This will be held in place using ‘liggers’, long strips of split hazel tied into the roof with hazel ‘spars’.