My Strawbale House

by Caroline Barry

Brook Farm, Butleigh, Somerset

Ten years ago, I sold my neat safe stone cottage, and bought my field in Butleigh, only 3.5 acres, but it's amazing what you can do on a small parcel of land. After putting up stables and barns, I started agriculture with calf rearing, one week to six months, and progressed through rare breed pigs rearing, and had my own flock of pedigree Dorset sheep.

The only animals today are pets, goats, sheep, ducks dogs and cats. I have lived in the stable; tent, caravan and five years ago built a house of strawbale and cordwood. In 1999, I was given a two-year permission to live on my land. The caravan became increasingly damp and unhealthy and I learnt that planning guidance had been changed to allow temporary agriculture workers to reside in a "wooden structure that can be easily dismantled" so I purchased a second hand wooden frame and erected it with walls made of strawbales and cordwood logs. The mistake I made was in asking advice from Building Regs and then using this advice instead of following my own intuition. We planned to build the house on car tyres, but Building Regs insisted we used concrete footings, or it would not be recognised as a house, so we put in the minimum concrete and attached the house to it.

The problem was that the permission given was for temporary accommodation and planning dept considered the house to be permanent because of the concrete footings their Building Regs insisted had to go down. There was an enforcement action on the house; it had to come down in August 2003 . So it did, on Friday bank holiday, the whole house was dismantled, it came down like a sliced loaf as it was on a timber frame with strawbale and cordwood infill, but the pressure was on, as the JCBs to smash and dig out the concrete footings did not work Bank Holiday weekend, so they were arriving at lunchtime. We worked most of the weekend with a team of about 34 willing workers. In the evenings we relaxed with beers round the fire in the woods, and socialised!

The timber frame complete with roof trusses up and perlings on, got to get it exactly square ! Then the roof on, plyboards with waterproof membrane and felt layers. The frames up and time to start the infill. This is when strawbale frenzy starts - you hardly get the first bale in and everyone wants to see how the giant legobricks work, and before you know it you have a wall, whether there was supposed to be a window or door ! After restraining orders were set, the serious work started. At then end of the day it was beginning to look like a house.

It was good fun to make window boxes and door frames, then fill in the strawbales and start to lime putty the bales, after safety talks and demo by Rob Buckley of D.C.R.S. with rubber gloves and goggles, it was hands on this wonderful stuff and get mucky time!

By Monday evening we had the house up timber frame with strawbales coated with lime putty, cordwood ends with windows and doors in place. What an achievement - we had a BBC camera crew to record all the events for their programme and I think that, without this, we would have all thought it was a dream or nightmare weekend! I would say we achieved the impossible and my heartfelt thanks go out to everyone who helped - especially the catering crew who kept us all sane!!

The local planning authority were still not happy, after all this effort to fulfil their criteria, they said I was still in breach of the enforcement notice and pursued criminal prosecution against me. They still consider the house to be permanent despite the fact it is not attached to the ground in any way and we have proved it can be dismantled and removed.

Meanwhile other local organisations have heaped praise upon the house for its sustainable attributes; it is the first strawbale house in the area. Since then, in conjunction with Barbara Jones of Amazon Nails, we have built a strawbale classroom at an Environmental Centre in Castle Cary.

Recycled House

The original strawbale house was built in October/December 2000, weekend work with friends. In August 2003 in a weekend, we took the whole house down and rebuilt it in 24 hours, concentrated effort with many hands.

• Car tyres for the foundations have been collected from garages locally, saved from landfill, spare tyres will be used for vegetables and compost

• The whole timber frame is now third-hand

• Cordwood log walls were reused from the first build bought locally

• Strawbales on original build will be used for compost

• Wall ends are recycled fence rails

• Bottle wall in bathroom used 544 wine bottles, willingly emptied by friends

• Floor and roof are all recycled from first build

• Sheep fleeces, straight from the sheep (except the mucky bits) used to insulate the inside roof

• All interior walls are recycled

• Windows and doors came mainly from skips

• Furniture is all donated second-hand (or even third-hand)

As part of my farm there is a copse of woods - this is my play area - and with help from grandchildren we have created 100 aker wood, home to Winnie the Pooh and all his mates. In the centre is a natural chimney in the trees, and this is where we have our fire and benches for social evenings, music and beer! Of all the visitors we have on the farm, regardless of age, I think they all enjoy finding the animals in the woods. We have had several workshops there - recently a survival weekend, green woodworking, making rustic furniture and kids doing archery.

Brook Farm has the only strawbale and cordwood house in the UK and as far as we know the only wine bottle wall.

Caroline Barry  01458 850243  email:  www.carolinebarry.org.uk