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Hadleigh’s Roundhouse -
The only one in Essex
Opening Times
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Since
2000, the Country Park has run a very successful living education
programme based on the Saxons – Hadleigh is of Saxon origin
meaning “clearing in the heath”. Site staff wanted
to expand this work to cover other periods in history and at the
same time provide a much needed building to give school groups
a sheltered working environment. Many options were considered,
but the wish to build something dramatic and unique to the county
led to the proposal to build a replica Iron Age roundhouse. There
are two Iron Age finds in Chapel Lane, and there is archaeological
evidence of roundhouses at Shoeburyness and Orsett. |
Hadleigh’s
roundhouse is based on a floor plan from an archaeological excavation
at Little Waltham, near Chelmsford and was funded by a grant from
Veolia ES Cleanaway Pitsea Marshes Trust.
Roundhouses are essentially circular houses with a conical thatched
roof. They were built during the Bronze Age and Iron Age. The
building consists of a low outer wall of stakes interwoven with
hazel rods, which is covered in daub (a mixture of clay, sand
and straw). Over 40 roof rafters rest on this wall to meet at
an apex, hazel roof purlins are tied to these rafters and the
whole building is covered in thatch. |
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The
materials for building a roundhouse would have been sourced from
the local area and we have tried to do the same, as far as we
have been able. The main timbers of pine and sweet chestnut came
from Norsey Wood, near Billericay and Thorndon Country Park, near
Brentwood. The hazel rods came from Garnetts Wood, near Great
Dunmow and the reeds from near Great Yarmouth on the Norfolk/Suffolk
border – the nearest commercial reed bed that could supply
the quantity that we required. |
What you need
to make a roundhouse:
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