Hi sorry it has been so long since the last update! The roundhouse has come on amazingly well the roof is now complete and keeping us dry, which is lovely. The roof concists of many layers: first the chestnut structure, then comes a layer of breathable membrane  (thin strong white papery stuff as we call it) then a layer of straw, (donated to us by plaw hatch farm) over that comes a layer of pondliner then finaly earth and turf (thanks to the turf suppliers in copthorne and to homebase who kindly donated enough turf to cover the whole roof (about 13 square meters!)

update

Hi everyone! work on the roundhouse has come on well, we now have the main structure up and the first layer of the roof on. Tom from Plaw hatch has very kindly given us some straw for the second layer (saving us about £3oo!) which is just as well because the pond-liner for the third layer was very pricey indeed. Students have been busy making a wattle fence using hazel that we harvested in the spring, prepairing logs for the log walls, and moving hardcore to be used as foundations for the walls and for filling in holes in the drive so our poor camper-van doesent take such a beating coming down the hill. I will put some photos on here at some point but to be honest i have not a clue how to do that will learn soon.

 if anyone reading this has any old woodworking tools they dont want anymore i would be very gratefull to have them.

bye for now, and photos soon i promise! 

First Uprights Go In

At long last we feel like we are actually biginning to build, All of the students worked particularly hard moving earth, digging holes, shifting hardcore and making sure the seat of the campervan does not get up and wander down the track of it´s own accord (thanks mark!) and now we have half of our uprights in place and a good stack of fire wood to keep us warm until we get a roof over our heads.