A Day Out!

I'll write this up properly tomorrow, but we had a rare day out today - paid for by middle daughter G, bless her. We went to Gloucester, and had a look around the Antiques centre in the historic Docks and we also visited the beautiful Cathedral.

A.R.O.S. for today (2 of them):

The milky mynydd crouches, pierced by a dark tree like a lollipop etched against sunlight.

Seen through a welter of roadside trees, the sun shines primevaly.

Things that make me cry

This has to be one of them. I just LOVE John Denver's voice and Jacque Cousteau's programmes have just bought my childhood into such sharp focus. I just sat here listening to this and sobbing . . .

I wish I could show you a photo but they are all subject to possible copyright . . .

A.R.O.S. for today

The wind whines through the winter-bare branches,
With the fir-tree flailing Kali-like arms,
As birds are tossed aloft.

T'yr unnos Part II

(The photographs show what remains of a one-time cottage, and the cauldron, tin baths and buckets which had once been used there. This is more likely to have been a dwelling permitted by the farmer in the 19th century, to tempt an agricutural worker to stay put at a time when farm workers were being lured away to the towns with the promise of work in the mines and mills. Farmers also benefitted by being able to charge a small rent for the corner of the field (as this cottage was situated and many more in the parish) and to have a worker on call, who could be laid off in slack times. The poor worker would be obliged to try and earn a crust in other ways, as the rent would still need to be paid . . .)



Who were the people then, who were forced to build their house in such a manner? Why was it necessary to do it under cover of darkness, and perhaps at the time of the year when the weather was least likely to be kind to house-builders but the hours of darkness longer? The ty unnos would have been built and lived in by the type of worker-peasant class who were agricultural workers for those with farms - a different class of person to the cottager, who had a little more independence. The worker-peasant was a "largely despised" class - who were paupers when without work.

Farmers had little inclination to build dwellings for their labourers, believing that such houses would soon become "nests of vermin, pilferers and poachers" and the general inclination was to pull DOWN such houses.

The ty unnos was a social necessity for this lowest of the low, who found it necessary to encroach upon common land - in other words, become squatters. The farm labourer would want to be as close to his place of employment as he could, but that proximity would be governed by the suitability of the landscape - no-one could build in a bog, for instance, although often the agriculturally marginal moorlands of sour acid soil were often chosen as the squatters would be less likely to be thrown off. As for surrounding land, it was reckoned that a man could lay claim to as much land as he could enclose after throwing an axe as far as possible from the building - although in Cardiganshire this was generally noted to be something in the region of 6 acres so these farm workers must have had good upper body strength! If the man (and his family) could reside in his new built house for a year without any interruption, he could claim this as his freehold property and replace the original hovel with a more permanent building.

It is not hard to imagine the work and organization leading up to the building, such as this extract from Eurwyn William's book The Welsh Cottage, which refers to an upland Tregaron district in Cardiganshire in the early 20th C:

"The first indication would be that the village carpenter was preparing a door and window for someone . . . the cottager would prepare several essential items beforehand and seek the assistance of his friends . . . Later on, a meeting-place would be set, like a crossroads or a hillock, in such a way that none would know until the last minute where the cottage was to be built . . . Work was begun as secretively as possible, about ten o'clock; sometimes there would be 30 or 40 workers, according to the man's popularity - some of them building, and others on the look-out in case anybody came to hinder them. Then, in the early hours of the morning the new house-wife would bring food for the helpers before they scattered and went ahead to set a fire on the new hearth, because the house, according to country law and lore, was considered to be safe once smoke arose from the chimney. "

A.R.O.S. for today

A shuffle of Jackdaws on a wire, like beads on a jet necklace. . .

Ty'r unnos

A ty unnos - no doubt of it. This illustration from Eurwyn William's The Welsh Cottage (a Christmas present from me to my husband), shows just how basic these cottages would have been. A one room hovel, with a door and no window, but it had cost nothing but time and neighbours' friendship and provided a family with shelter.

This is translated from the Welsh as "one night house" - in other words, a house which was built during the hours of darkness and habitable enough to have smoke coming out of the chimney next morning, earning its builder "squatters rights" on the tiny corner of land they had managed to appropriate. The one night houses were also built in other marginal areas (I have had one pointed out to me on Dartmoor, which is now slightly more substantial and welcoming than it must have been originally).



Various natural local materials would have been used in order to build the cottage. Stone would have been needed to provide foundations for the cob or turf outer walls. Often it would be large rounded river cobbles, leveled with layers of slate.Internal walls of wattle and daub were often placed on a foundation of brambles, which were also used to tie the roof materials to the timbers. Mud would have been needed to incorporate in the cob or wattle and daub walls, as would horse hair. The floor would have almost certainly been bare earth. However, the earth floor might have lime mixed with earth, or urine from bullocks, or even blood from a recently-slaughtered bullock might be used to harden it. Mixed with limewash, the blood would make an acceptable coloured paint, which could be used outside when waterproofed by the addition of tallow.

Below: an example of a local cottage (possibly a ty unnos) which has utilised the river cobbles and slivers of slate in the building of its gable wall. In 1881, it was home to net makers and sieve makers.
Below: I'm not sure if this was originally a ty unnos either, but it is a cruck framed dwelling, thatched, and with quite substantial end walls. The ty unnos would often be improved over the years - or else allowed to sink back into the land from whence it came.


Water nearby would be needed to supply the cottager's needs once living within, but also of course, to mix with the cob or daub. Turves were used as walls, as underthatch and also as the ridge along the roof. Timber would have been needed for door and window frames, doors, a bressummer beam over the cooking fireplace, and of course to provide roof timbers and in some instances cruck frames for the cottage.

Thatch would be made of wheat or rye straw, or else rushes, reeds, or moorland grass locally sourced. It would be laid across a framework of small branches which rested on the stronger joists, and over an underthatch of turf, bracken, gorse or heather. Willow or hazel would have been utilised to hold it in place, and also to make pegs to hold the framework timber together.

Whilst window glass was a luxury very few could have afforded, animal hides scraped very thin or oiled paper were sometimes used to allow some light into the interior. The poorest might just have had a flap of sacking, which would be drawn aside to allow daylight in (and often smoke out, presumably!)

Tomorrow I hope to find time to tell you more about the details of how they were built - illegally - and under cover of darkness.



a.r.o.s. for today: rain falls like tears on the empty hearth where a mother once cooked. This tumble of stones was once her home . . .

Short and sweet

That's what my postings will have to be for a while, as I am sharing my computer with my daughter and her boyfriend as theirs needs a new cable.

The heavy rain we have had over the past few days has had its obvious conclusion, with flooding on the Carmarthen flood plain where the Towy has burst its banks, and our own Cothi is several feet higher than it was a few days ago. It will rise and drop quite radically within the space of a few hours, and is a regular occurrence in our valley. Nothing on the scale of the dreadful flooding in Brisbane and Toowoomba though, thank heavens, although in 1987 they had catastrophic flooding in this area and neighbours still tell of the bridge holding up fallen trees until the river, in spate, had no option but to pass over the TOP of the bridge, and consequently flooded the bungalow and cottage by the side of it to a depth of more than 4 feet.








Whilst I was driving into town for my physio appointment this morning, although concentrating on the road, I could see enough of the flooded Towy to form today's A.R.O.S., which I jotted down the moment I parked at the Hospital. Here it is:

After heavy rain, the river nosy-parkers across sodden fields, nudging hedgerows with curious fingers and shining like a lake of mercury.