Episode Information Sussex: The Woodman's Cottage

Date Published:

11/06/2008

For 10 years, Ben lived in tents and caravans in a wood in West Sussex. As a woodsman, he needed and wanted to live among the trees, but now he wanted a house for some creature comforts. He invited volunteers to help him build one by hand, from the materials growing around him.

Ben owned a third of the sweet-chestnut woodland and rented the rest. The house he designed was to be made almost entirely of wood, with an A-frame made of tree trunks, a wooden platform for a floor and oak shingles on the roof.

All the timber would come from the surrounding trees - sweet chestnut is a strong hardwood, ideal for this kind of building.

Because Ben coppices trees instead of removing them, roots and all, new growth would quickly replace the old.

The Vision

The house would comprise: a single large living room, rising all the way to the roof, including a kitchen area; one bedroom on the ground floor; and a bathroom. Ben came up with some simple drawings and appointed architect John Rees to advise him.

Volunteers were invited to come and stay in the woods and help build the house in return for food and drink and some tuition from master-carpenter Viv Goodings. With no builders' wages, and the wood being free, Ben aimed to build the house, complete with sun and wind powered electricity, for £25,000.

Natural Beauty And Strength

Building began in May, and Ben's ambition was to move in by the time the winter weather arrived. The hand-crafted approach meant taking time over details. For instance, much of the wood was being left in the round. This meant that it kept its natural beauty and strength, but special joints were required for fixing curved surfaces together. And the pace of work altered according to how many volunteers turned up.

The A-frame went up in a day - an extraordinary feat, involving hand-winching pairs of 30 foot ( nine metre) tree trunks. But filling in the frame with floors and a verandah, and adding rafters and internal walls, involved slow and steady work that lasted months. Then there were the 12,000 oak shingles, all hand-cut by Ben, to be nailed on to the roof.

Sleeping Indoors

In autumn, recycled newspaper insulation went under the floor and into the roof, and oak-edged boards were fitted on to the outside of the house. Then barley-straw bales, which had been bought from a neighbouring farm, were stacked in between the timber fame and the internal stud-work to create thick walls. Ben installed a wood-burning stove, bath and hot-water cylinder, and started sleeping indoors.

Cabling, wrapped in copper to proof it against fire and rodents, was run through the straw. Using clay from his pond, Ben built a fireplace and covered the internal lath walls with clay plaster. Finally, glass went in to the windows, the straw bales were covered with lime plaster, and the house was weatherproofed - just as the November storms arrived.

The Detail

The house is a hymn to wood. Inside and out, wood displays its beautiful variations of size, colour and texture. Pieces are fitted together with hand-crafted pegs. The oak shingles of the roof ripple with natural curves. The big arched window echoes the shape of house.

Light floods in and shadows of beams and laths move across the walls. Eventually, storage platforms will be installed high up at either end of the house.

The living-room walls, covered in lime plaster, are a gentle yellowish-cream. Lime wash mixed with iron oxide and turmeric has turned the bedroom walls red-orange. Some surfaces are curved, where the straw bales beneath the plaster had been shaped with a chainsaw.

A tall, curved clay fireplace mirrors the shape of the arched window. Curved niches for candles are set into the chimney breast.

Bathroom and kitchen have all Ben needs in the way of luxury. An enamel bath connects to the hot-water cylinder. Iron pots hang above a black Rayburn.

The house runs entirely off natural energy, and even some of the technology has recycled parts. Solar panels previously used in the Big Brother house provide electricity, which is stored in second-hand submarine batteries. Together with a few wind turbines, they will power Ben's lights, stereo and laptop. Rainwater and a nearby spring supply the taps. And soon the composting toilet will arrive.