Wattle is made by weaving flexible branches around upright stakes to form a woven lattice. The wattle may be made into an individual panel, commonly called a hurdle, or it may be formed into a continuous fence. Wattles also form the basic structure for wattle and daub wall construction, where wattling is daubed with a plaster-like substance to make a weather-resistant wall.
Evidence of wattle construction was found at Woodcutts Settlement from the British Iron Age, [1] and the Roman Vitruvius wrote about wattles in his book on architecture, De architectura , [2] but the technique goes back to Neolithic times. [3]
The construction of wattles starts with the uprights, whether they are set into a frame or placed into the ground. Starting at the bottom, flexible willow shoots, called withies, are woven in and out of the uprights (staves).
In England the Romans used wattlework for various purposes, as for the lining of wells, as at Caersws. ... In these Romano-British examples the wattling does not appear to have been in frames, as the rounded daubing of the ends of the wattling was found. Apparently the ends of the wattle stakes were merely driven into the ground without a sill ... Probably the ends of the Romano-British wattles were formed in the same manner as are hurdles in West Surrey to-day. The hurdle maker uses a 'hurdle frame,' a long shaped block slightly curved to hold the feet of the uprights, which are round rods; 'the man then weaves in horizontally the smaller split rods till he has filled up the hurdle. When he comes to either end he gives the rod a clever twist that opens the fibres and gives it something the character of a rope, so that it passes tough-stranded and unbroken round the end uprights.' When the twigs or wattles had been interwoven with the posts the hurdle became one homogenous whole. [1]
Wattles forms the basis of wattle and daub, a composite building material used for making walls, in which wattle is daubed with a sticky material usually made of some combination of wet soil, clay, sand, animal dung and straw. Wattle and daub has been used for at least 6,000 years, and is still an important construction material in many parts of the world. The technique is similar to modern lath and plaster, a common building material for wall and ceiling surfaces, in which a series of nailed wooden strips are covered with plaster smoothed into a flat surface. Many historic buildings include wattle and daub construction, mostly as infill panels in timber frame construction.
A fence is a structure that encloses an area, typically outdoors, and is usually constructed from posts that are connected by boards, wire, rails or netting. A fence differs from a wall in not having a solid foundation along its whole length.
Wattle or wattles may refer to:
Plaster is a building material used for the protective or decorative coating of walls and ceilings and for moulding and casting decorative elements. In English, "plaster" usually means a material used for the interiors of buildings, while "render" commonly refers to external applications. The term stucco refers to plasterwork that is worked in some way to produce relief decoration, rather than flat surfaces.
Building material is material used for construction. Many naturally occurring substances, such as clay, rocks, sand, wood, and even twigs and leaves, have been used to construct buildings. Apart from naturally occurring materials, many man-made products are in use, some more and some less synthetic. The manufacturing of building materials is an established industry in many countries and the use of these materials is typically segmented into specific specialty trades, such as carpentry, insulation, plumbing, and roofing work. They provide the make-up of habitats and structures including homes.
Stucco or render is a construction material made of aggregates, a binder, and water. Stucco is applied wet and hardens to a very dense solid. It is used as a decorative coating for walls and ceilings, exterior walls, and as a sculptural and artistic material in architecture. Stucco can be applied on construction materials such as metal, expanded metal lath, concrete, cinder block, or clay brick and adobe for decorative and structural purposes.
Timber framing and "post-and-beam" construction are traditional methods of building with heavy timbers, creating structures using squared-off and carefully fitted and joined timbers with joints secured by large wooden pegs. If the structural frame of load-bearing timber is left exposed on the exterior of the building it may be referred to as half-timbered, and in many cases the infill between timbers will be used for decorative effect. The country most known for this kind of architecture is Germany, where timber-framed houses are spread all over the country.
Earthbag construction is an inexpensive building method using mostly local soil to create structures which are both strong and can be quickly built.
Lath and plaster is a building process used to finish mainly interior dividing walls and ceilings. It consists of narrow strips of wood (laths) which are nailed horizontally across the wall studs or ceiling joists and then coated in plaster. The technique derives from an earlier, more primitive process called wattle and daub.
Brick nog, is a construction technique in which bricks are used to fill the vacancies in a wooden frame. Such walls may then be covered with tile, weatherboards, or rendering, or the brick may remain exposed on the interior or exterior of the building.
Butser Ancient Farm is an archaeological open-air museum and experimental archaeology site located near Petersfield in Hampshire, southern England. Butser features experimental reconstructions of prehistoric, Romano-British and Anglo-Saxon buildings. Examples of Neolithic dwellings, Iron Age roundhouses, a Romano-British villa and an early Saxon house are on display. The site is used as both a tourist attraction and a site for the undertaking of experimental archaeology. In this latter capacity, it was designed so that archaeologists could learn more about the agricultural and domestic economy in Britain during the millennium that lasted from circa 400 BCE to 400 CE, in what was the Late British Iron Age and Romano-British periods.
A lath or slat is a thin, narrow strip of straight-grained wood used under roof shingles or tiles, on lath and plaster walls and ceilings to hold plaster, and in lattice and trellis work.
Plasterwork is construction or ornamentation done with plaster, such as a layer of plaster on an interior or exterior wall structure, or plaster decorative moldings on ceilings or walls. This is also sometimes called pargeting. The process of creating plasterwork, called plastering or rendering, has been used in building construction for centuries. For the art history of three-dimensional plaster, see stucco.
A hurdle is a moveable section of light fence. In the United States, terms such as "panel", "pipe panel" or simply "fence section" are used to describe moveable sections of fencing intended for agricultural use and crowd control; "hurdle" refers primarily to fences used as jumping obstacles for steeplechasing with horses or human track and field competition.
An earth structure is a building or other structure made largely from soil. Since soil is a widely available material, it has been used in construction since prehistoric times. It may be combined with other materials, compressed and/or baked to add strength.
Quincha is a traditional construction system that uses, fundamentally, wood and cane or giant reed forming an earthquake-proof framework that is covered in mud and plaster.
This glossary of woodworking lists a number of specialized terms and concepts used in woodworking, carpentry, and related disciplines.
An izba is a traditional Russian countryside dwelling. Often a log house, it forms the living quarters of a conventional Russian farmstead. It is generally built close to the road and inside a yard, which also encloses a kitchen garden, hay shed, and barn within a simple woven stick fence. Traditional, old-style izba construction involved the use of simple tools, such as ropes, axes, knives, and spades. Nails were not generally used, as metal was relatively expensive, and neither were saws a common construction tool. Both interior and exterior are of split pine tree trunks, the gap between is traditionally filled with river clay, not unlike the North American log cabin.
Bousillage is a mixture of clay and grass or other fibrous substances used as the infill (chinking) between the timbers of a half-timbered building. This material was commonly used by 18th-century French colonial settlers in the historical New France region of the United States and is similar to the material cob and adobe. In French torchis has the same meaning or the meaning of a loaf of this material.
Wattle and daub is a composite building method used for making walls and buildings, in which a woven lattice of wooden strips called "wattle" is "daubed" with a sticky material usually made of some combination of wet soil, clay, sand, animal dung and straw. Wattle and daub has been used for at least 6,000 years and is still an important construction method in many parts of the world. Many historic buildings include wattle and daub construction.
Bamboo-mud wall is a composite wall construction method largely used in Taiwan under Japanese rule in the early 20th century. Derived from Japanese wattle and daub, Bamboo-mud wall differs from Japanese processor in its materiality, using bamboo instead of wood for woven lattice.
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