Roundhouse (dwelling)

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Reconstructed crannog on Loch Tay, Scotland Loch tay crannog 02.jpg
Reconstructed crannog on Loch Tay, Scotland

A roundhouse is a type of house with a circular plan, usually with a conical roof. In the later part of the 20th century, modern designs of roundhouse eco-buildings were constructed with materials such as cob, cordwood or straw bale walls and reciprocal frame green roofs.

Contents

Europe

United Kingdom

Reconstruction of a British Iron Age Celtic roundhouse at Butser Ancient Farm Largest of the replica iron-age roundhouses, Butser Farm - geograph.org.uk - 2136873.jpg
Reconstruction of a British Iron Age Celtic roundhouse at Butser Ancient Farm

Roundhouses were the standard form of housing built in Britain and Ireland from the Bronze Age throughout the Iron Age, and in some areas well into the Sub Roman period. The people built walls made of either stone or of wooden posts joined by wattle-and-daub panels, and topped with a conical thatched roof. These ranged in size from less than 5m in diameter to over 15m. The Atlantic roundhouse, Broch, and Wheelhouse styles were used in Scotland. The remains of many Bronze Age roundhouses can still be found scattered across open heathland, such as Dartmoor, as stone 'hut circles'.

Early archeologists determined what they believed were the characteristics of such structures by the layout of the postholes, although a few timbers were found preserved in bogs. The rest has been postulated by experimental archaeology, which has tried different techniques to demonstrate the most likely form and function of the buildings. For example, experiments have shown that a conical roof with a pitch of about 45 degrees would have been the strongest and most efficient design. According to Peter J. Reynolds fire would have been lit inside for heating and cooking, there could not have been a smoke hole in the apex of the roof, for this would have caused an updraft that would have rapidly set fire to the thatch. Instead, smoke would have been allowed to accumulate harmlessly inside the roof space, and slowly leak out through the thatch. [1]

Many modern simulations of roundhouses have been built, including:

ImageNameTownCountyCountryNotes
Barbury Castle - Iron Age house building.JPG Barbury Castle Swindon Wiltshire England(destroyed by fire)
Beeston Bronze Age Roundhouse Beeston Castle Cheshire EnglandBuilt 2019
Bodrifty Reconstruction - geograph.org.uk - 974896.jpg Bodrifty Iron Age Settlement Cornwall England
Brigantium Archeological CentreHigh Rochester Northumberland EnglandNow Dismantled
Butser Farm Little Woodbury.jpg Butser Ancient Farm Hampshire England
Cae Mabon Round House.JPG Cae Mabon Wales
Castell Henllys - geograph.org.uk - 67364.jpg Castell Henllys Pembrokeshire Wales
Cockley Cley,near Swaffham Norfolk England
Flag Ben Iron Age Roundhouse.jpg Flag Fen near Peterborough England
Mellor roundhouse reconstruction Greater Manchester England
Westhay.jpg Peat Moors Centre Somerset EnglandClosed to the public 31 October 2008
Ryedale Folk Museum Roundhouse.jpg Ryedale Folk Museum near Pickering North Yorkshire England
Celtic Village St Fagans 01.JPG St. Fagans museum, Wales. South Glamorgan WalesThe museum exhibition open for 20 years and was based on roundhouses in Conderton, Worcestershire. [2]
Bryn Eryr Farmstead, St Fagans National History Museum (geograph 5111620).jpg St Fagans National History Museum South Glamorgan WalesNew exhibition opened in 2016. [3]
Loch tay crannog 02.jpg Scottish Crannog Centre Loch Tay Perthshire ScotlandRoundhouse reconstruction on a man made island
Roundhouses Stonehenge Visitors Centre.jpg Stonehenge Visitor Centre Neolithic roundhouses Wiltshire England
Tatton Iron Age roundhouse and pit Cheshire England
Iron Age Village, Llynnon Mill, Llanddeusant, Anglesey. - geograph.org.uk - 363941.jpg Llynnon Mill, Llanddeusant Anglesey Wales

Must Farm revelations

Much of the earlier supposition was confirmed or denied at a stroke by the finding of a set of Bronze Age roundhouses at the archaeological dig at Must Farm in Cambridgeshire, UK, where samples of all the materials, from posts to walls, to roof were all found, collapsed and charred, but still in situ after 3,000 years.

Modern British roundhouses

That Roundhouse, constructed in 1997 That roundhouse spring.jpg
That Roundhouse, constructed in 1997

That Roundhouse is an early example of a modern roundhouse dwelling which was built in Pembrokeshire Coast National Park, Wales without planning permission as part of the Brithdir Mawr village which was discovered by the authorities in 1998. [4] It is constructed from a wooden frame of hand-cut Douglas Fir forest thinnings with cordwood infill, and reciprocal frame turf roof based on permaculture principles mainly from local natural resources. It was subject to a lengthy planning battle including a court injunction to force its demolition before finally receiving planning approval for 3 years in September 2008. [5]

Ireland

Irish crannógs are located in Craggaunowen, Ireland; the Irish National Heritage Park, in Wexford, Ireland

Italy

Trulli (singular: trullo) are houses with conical roofs, and sometimes circular walls, found in parts of the southern Italian region of Apulia.

Spain

Galicia – Asturias

Pallozas
A palloza in Galicia, Spain Palloza galega.jpg
A palloza in Galicia, Spain

A palloza is a traditional thatched house as found in Leonese county of El Bierzo, Serra dos Ancares in Galicia, and south-west of Asturias; corresponding to Astur tribes area, one of pre Hispano-Celtic inhabitants of northwest Hispania. It is circular or oval, and about ten or twenty metres in diameter and is built to withstand severe winter weather at a typical altitude of 1,200 metres.

The main structure is stone, and is divided internally into separate areas for the family and their animals, with separate entrances. The roof is conical, made from rye straw on a wooden frame. There is no chimney, the smoke from the kitchen fire seeps out through the thatch.

As well as living space for humans and animals, a palloza has its own bread oven, workshops for wood, metal and leather work, and a loom. Only the eldest couple of an extended family had their own bedroom, which they shared with the youngest children. The rest of the family slept in the hay loft, in the roof space.

Castros
View of the balconies-galleries inside the round house Taganrog Krugl dom.JPG
View of the balconies-galleries inside the round house

Russia

The Taganrog Round House is a residential apartment building in Taganrog, Rostov and was the first round house built in the USSR. The building is a modern round house built in 1929 and inhabited on 7 November 1932. The shared toilet was outside the house, about 20 meters from it. [6] Plumbing and sewerage were equipped in the apartments of the house only in the early 1960s. By the 80th anniversary of the round house in October 2012, major repairs were carried out, and the anniversary itself was marked by a celebration held in the courtyard by the tenants of the house. [7]

North America

Roundhouses were a common form of architecture in some Native American Tribes. Traditional roundhouses were often used for ceremonies "and provided a large work area during inclement weather." [8] The Chaw Se' Roundhouse in California's Indian Grinding Rock State Historic Park is designated with state historical marker #1001. [9]

Modern roundhouses are being built such as the one at Dancing Rabbit Ecovillage near Rutledge, Missouri, built of cob. [10]

South America

Aerial view of a Yanomami shabono in northern Brazil. Outlying buildings are for the privacy of newlywed couples, or may be used for the preparation of game and fish. Postoyano Feb 2001 1 (2).jpg
Aerial view of a Yanomami shabono in northern Brazil. Outlying buildings are for the privacy of newlywed couples, or may be used for the preparation of game and fish.

Roundhouses are still in use by Indigenous peoples in Brazil, including large communal Shabono.

Africa

A traditional African hut in Ethiopia The Hut (5065803296).jpg
A traditional African hut in Ethiopia

The African round hut is still in use.

Oceania

Raun Haus roundhouses are still in use in Papua New Guinea and are very similar to the ones built in western Europe. [11]

Arctic

The Igloo is a temporary roundhouse built from ice.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Thatching</span> Type of roof

Thatching is the craft of building a roof with dry vegetation such as straw, water reed, sedge, rushes, heather, or palm branches, layering the vegetation so as to shed water away from the inner roof. Since the bulk of the vegetation stays dry and is densely packed—trapping air—thatching also functions as insulation. It is a very old roofing method and has been used in both tropical and temperate climates. Thatch is still employed by builders in developing countries, usually with low-cost local vegetation. By contrast, in some developed countries it is the choice of some affluent people who desire a rustic look for their home, would like a more ecologically friendly roof, or who have purchased an originally thatched abode.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Barn</span> Agricultural building used for storage and as a covered workplace

A barn is an agricultural building usually on farms and used for various purposes. In North America, a barn refers to structures that house livestock, including cattle and horses, as well as equipment and fodder, and often grain. As a result, the term barn is often qualified e.g. tobacco barn, dairy barn, cow house, sheep barn, potato barn. In the British Isles, the term barn is restricted mainly to storage structures for unthreshed cereals and fodder, the terms byre or shippon being applied to cow shelters, whereas horses are kept in buildings known as stables. In mainland Europe, however, barns were often part of integrated structures known as byre-dwellings. In addition, barns may be used for equipment storage, as a covered workplace, and for activities such as threshing.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Yurt</span> Portable, round tent covered with skins or felt

A yurt or ger (Mongolian) is a portable, round tent covered and insulated with skins or felt and traditionally used as a dwelling by several distinct nomadic groups in the steppes and mountains of Inner Asia. The structure consists of a flexible angled assembly or latticework of wood or bamboo for walls, a door frame, ribs, and a wheel possibly steam-bent as a roof. The roof structure is sometimes self-supporting, but large yurts may have interior posts supporting the crown. The top of the wall of self-supporting yurts is prevented from spreading by means of a tension band which opposes the force of the roof ribs. Yurts take between 30 minutes and 3 hours to set up or take down, and are generally used by between five and 15 people. Nomadic farming with yurts as housing has been the primary life style in Central Asia, particularly Mongolia, for thousands of years.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jarlshof</span> Archeological site in Shetland, Scotland

Jarlshof is the best-known prehistoric archaeological site in Shetland, Scotland. It lies in Sumburgh, Mainland, Shetland and has been described as "one of the most remarkable archaeological sites ever excavated in the British Isles". It contains remains dating from 2500 BC up to the 17th century AD.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Blackhouse</span> Traditional type of house in the UK

A blackhouse is a traditional type of house which used to be common in Ireland, the Hebrides, and the Scottish Highlands.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cordwood construction</span>

Cordwood construction is a term used for a natural building method in which short logs are piled crosswise to build a wall, using mortar or cob to permanently secure them. This technique can use local materials at minimal cost.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cottage</span> Dwelling type

A cottage, during England's feudal period, was the holding by a cottager of a small house with enough garden to feed a family and in return for the cottage, the cottager had to provide some form of service to the manorial lord. However, in time cottage just became the general term for a small house. In modern usage, a cottage is usually a modest, often cosy dwelling, typically in a rural or semi-rural location and not necessarily in England. The cottage orné, often quite large and grand residences built by the nobility, dates back to a movement of "rustic" stylised cottages of the late 18th and early 19th century during the Romantic movement.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Navan Fort</span> Ceremonial and possible royal site near Armagh, Northern Ireland

Navan Fort is an ancient ceremonial monument near Armagh, Northern Ireland. According to tradition it was one of the great royal sites of pre-Christian Gaelic Ireland and the capital of the Ulaidh. It is a large circular hilltop enclosure—marked by a bank and ditch—inside which is a circular mound and the remains of a ring barrow. Archeological investigations show that there were once buildings on the site, including a huge roundhouse-like structure that has been likened to a temple. In a ritual act, this timber structure was filled with stones, deliberately burnt down and then covered with earth to create the mound which stands today. It is believed that Navan was a pagan ceremonial site and was regarded as a sacred space. It features prominently in Irish mythology, especially in the tales of the Ulster Cycle. According to the Oxford Dictionary of Celtic Mythology, "the [Eamhain Mhacha] of myth and legend is a far grander and mysterious place than archeological excavation supports".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Natural building</span> Sustainable construction practice

Natural building is the construction of buildings using systems and materials that emphasize sustainability. This in turn implies durability and the use of minimally processed, plentiful or renewable resources, as well as those that, while recycled or salvaged, produce healthy living environments and maintain indoor air quality. Natural building tends to rely on human labor, more than technology. As Michael G. Smith observes, it depends on "local ecology, geology and climate; on the character of the particular building site, and on the needs and personalities of the builders and users."

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hut</span> Dwelling

A hut is a small dwelling, which may be constructed of various local materials. Huts are a type of vernacular architecture because they are built of readily available materials such as wood, snow, ice, stone, grass, palm leaves, branches, clay, hides, fabric, or mud using techniques passed down through the generations.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Atlantic roundhouse</span>

In archaeology, an Atlantic roundhouse is an Iron Age stone building found in the northern and western parts of mainland Scotland, the Northern Isles and the Hebrides.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Palloza</span>

A palloza is a traditional dwelling of the Serra dos Ancares of northwest Spain.

The Geestharden house, also called the Cimbrian house, Schleswig house, Slesvig house or Southern Jutland house due to its geographical spread in Jutland, is one of three basic forms on which the many farmhouse types in the north German state of Schleswig-Holstein are based. The other two basic designs are the Gulf house and the Low German hall house. By far the best known variant of the Geestharden house is the Uthland-Frisian house, which is also referred to as the Frisian house (Friesenhaus).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rumah adat</span> Traditional Indonesian houses

Rumah adat are traditional houses built in any of the vernacular architecture styles of Indonesia, collectively belonging to the Austronesian architecture. The traditional houses and settlements of the several hundreds ethnic groups of Indonesia are extremely varied and all have their own specific history. It is the Indonesian variants of the whole Austronesian architecture found all over places where Austronesian people inhabited from the Pacific to Madagascar each having their own history, culture and style.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hall house</span> Vernacular house typical of Britain, centred on a hall

The hall house is a type of vernacular house traditional in many parts of England, Wales, Ireland and lowland Scotland, as well as northern Europe, during the Middle Ages, centring on a hall. Usually timber-framed, some high status examples were built in stone.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Musgum mud hut</span>

Musgum mud huts or Musgum dwelling units are traditional domestic structures built of mud by the ethnic Musgum people in the Maga sub-division, Mayo-Danay division, Far North Province in Cameroon. Referred to in Munjuk as Tolek, the dwellings are built in a variety of shapes, such as tall domed or conical dwellings or huts, some with a reverse-V shape, and others with geometric designs.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hut circle</span>

In archaeology, a hut circle is a circular or oval depression in the ground which may or may not have a low stone wall around it that used to be the foundation of a round house. The superstructure of such a house would have been made of timber and thatch. They are numerous in parts of upland Britain and most date to around the 2nd century BC.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">E. L. Smith Roundhouse Granite Shed</span> United States historic place

The E.L. Smith Roundhouse Granite Shed is a historic granite shed at 23 Burnham Street in the city of Barre, Vermont. Built in 1889, it is the only known surviving example of a circular granite cutting shed in the United States. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2011.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Taganrog Round House</span> Building in Taganrog, Russia

The Taganrog Round House is a residential apartment building in Taganrog, and was the first round house built in the USSR. It is located at 107 Aleksandrovskaya St.

References

  1. Aston, Mick (2001-10-05). "Peter Reynolds: archaeologist who showed us what the Iron Age was really like (obituary) In Africa a round house was found on a volcano". The Guardian . London.
  2. "The Project: St Fagans 05". theroundhouse.org. 2005.
  3. "Starting work on our new Celtic Village". amgueddfa.cymru. 20 December 2013.
  4. "Secret village to be pulled down". BBC News. 1998-10-23. Retrieved 2009-04-12.
  5. Barkham, Patrick (2009-04-12). "Round the houses". The Guardian. London. Retrieved 2009-04-12.
  6. Sadyrin, Anton A. (2016-04-01). "Migrant students from Kazakhstan: fact or fiction? (the case of Tomsk)". Vestnik Tomskogo Gosudarstvennogo Universiteta. Istoriya. 2 (40): 127–131. doi: 10.17223/19988613/40/19 . ISSN   1998-8613.
  7. Rumyantsev, A. A.; Sergeevtsev, E. Y. (May 2012). "ВИБРАЦИОННЫЕ ИСПЫТАНИЯ 16-ЭТАЖНОГО ЖИЛОГО ДОМА ОБЪЕМНО-БЛОЧНОЙ КОНСТРУКЦИИ". Vestnik MGSU (5): 98–103. doi: 10.22227/1997-0935.2012.5.98-103 . ISSN   1997-0935.
  8. Roseville History before 1820, Roseville Historical Society
  9. Chaw Se' Roundhouse (No. 1001 California Historical Marker)
  10. "Cob roundhouse". Archived from the original on 2009-04-10.
  11. "Raun Haus / Round Haus".