I Built a Medieval House Using Primitive Techniques | Start to Finish

In the summer before last, I set out to construct an authentic Anglo-Saxon Pit House using the tools and techniques of the Early Anglo-Saxons.

Watch as I build wattle and daub walls, a thatched roof, a woven door, a hand-hewn plank bed and window shutters, and a clay oven to bake bread and cook food.

My axes and mattock are based on examples found at Anglo-Saxon sites, such as the Middle-Saxon settlement of Flixborough, and the Buckland Dover Anglo-Saxon Cemetery. The carved oak spade is based on images from Early Medieval manuscripts, alongside those wooden spades found in Viking Age sites such as the Oseberg ship burial.

I based the pit footprint and post holes of this house on an example from Lechlade-on-Thames, Oxfordshire; 14 foot long by 10 foot wide, with depth of around 1 and a half feet. The pit had a post hole at each end, a long shelf on the southern side, and an opening into the side of the pit, which I interpreted as an entrance way. I also built the house on the same orientation as the original - SW-NE.

All that usually remains of these pit-houses, is the pit itself, the post holes, and sometimes a burned hearth. To reconstruct this house, all I had to suggest its structure above ground was the size of the pit, and the location of the post-holes. Everything else had to be ‘archaeologically invisible’, meaning that the walls, roof and everything but the posts needed to use techniques that would not survive in the archaeology.

If you are interested in more detail, you can watch this series episode by episode, with informative subtitles, on my YouTube channel:    • Building an Anglo-Saxon Pit House wit...  

With thanks to:
Herknungr, Musician, playing 'Нови Циклус".
Grzegorz Kulig, Silversmith, for making the pattern-welded knife.
Hector Cole, Blacksmith, for forging the T-shaped hewing axe.

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