Building a roundhouse

Friday 4 October
Sunday 6 October
Monday 7 October
Tuesday 8 October
Wednesday 9 October
Thursday 10 October
Friday 11 October
Sunday 13 October
Monday 14 October

Friday 4 October

The Museum's roundhouse will be typical of homes that existed in the London area in the late Iron Age and early Roman period. Examples of this type of building have been excavated close to the Museum at Gresham Street and Newgate Street. Other examples have been found in Southwark, Heathrow and on sites throughout London. The surprising lesson learned from the Gresham Street excavation was that roundhouses continued to be built in Roman London.

At 4.2m in diameter this building is similar in size to the roundhouses found at Gresham Street. The East Sussex Archaeology and Museums Project (ESAMP) will build the walls by driving wooden stakes into the ground. The gaps are then filled in with woven sticks (wattle) and a clay mixture (daub).

Well-preserved examples of this type of construction have been found at the Glastonbury Lake Village, Somerset, allowing us to reconstruct the wall accurately using hazel wattle. Evidence from other excavations has been used to recreate an oak doorframe and a reed-covered roof.

There is less evidence available to help us reconstruct the interior but we do know that almost all houses had hearths and that some also had wooden plank floors.

Sunday 6 October

Pegs are used to mark out the correct location for all the stakes that make up the walls of the roundhouse.

The doorposts are set into the ground and topped with the lintel, holding the wattle door in place. Stakes are driven into the ground.

Once all the stakes are in place, visitors help the team to weave hazel rods in and out to create 'wattle' walls.

Monday 7 October

Once enough wattle has been woven in to reach the required height, long poles are attached to create the rafters.

The main rafters are added, reaching from the ground to the central point. Smaller poles are used to create additional rafters reaching down to the top of the wall.

Once all the rafters are in place, the highest and lowest purlins are woven in horizontally between the rafters to hold it all securely.

Tuesday 8 October

Additional hazel purlins are tied in at regular intervals up the roof.

Wednesday 9 October

All the purlins are now in place in regular intervals up to the full height of the roof, creating a strong framework to hold the thatch.

Once all the purlins are fixed, bunches of long reeds are tied on with the cut end at the bottom.

Work starts applying daub - a mixture of mud, manure and horsehair or straw - to the walls. Daub sticks to the woven wattle and fills all the gaps, making the building solid and windproof. A local resident helps the team with this messy work.