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Unusual dwellings

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BlueTrain

Nomad
Jul 13, 2005
482
1
78
Near Washington, D.C.
This is a subject I sometimes bring up on this sort of forum. Does anyone here live or has lived in a log house, adobe hourse, houseboat or canal boat, treehouse, tent, yurt, or other movable house, house with thatched roof, tower house or castle, house built before 1650 (about when my ancestors left England), cave (with or without round doors), army barracks or caserne, house no closer than 100 miles to another dwelling, or other dwelling of distinction worthy of mention?

Did I leave anything out? The best I can do is having lived in a log house now perhaps 150 years old. Have also lived in barracks, which was better than the log house, with qualifications.
 
I live in a thatched house at the moment :)

and I love it!

and I don't mind paying for the re-thatch, as it is keeping a 200 year plus tradition alive!

only trouble is, I have a mouse in my loft :) and he must be made of Kryptonite, as no poison as finished him off :)
 
stoddy said:
I live in a thatched house at the moment :)

and I love it!

and I don't mind paying for the re-thatch, as it is keeping a 200 year plus tradition alive!

only trouble is, I have a mouse in my loft :) and he must be made of Kryptonite, as no poison as finished him off :)
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have you tried lead??? as ive never met a mouse or rat that can survive 18 grains of lead :)
 
running bare said:
have you tried lead??? as ive never met a mouse or rat that can survive 18 grains of lead :)
Click to expand...

the wife won't even let me squash a fly :) so the mouse lives :)

hopefully he will die of natural causes soon :AR15firin
 
Not quite, but this is the view from our 200 year old house, just after a lorry took out the main electric cables to our "block". The house opposite would have been ours for about 3 grand 30 odd years ago, but for some unknown reason the folks didn't take up the offer. It was built in 1697...
 

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Wow! Silver Land-Rovers. Next I hope to see a forward-control Land-Rover.

By all means Viking houses count, turf roofs optional. I forgot to mention birchbark lodges and teepees.

This is a better response than the last time.

Not many houses around in this country from before 1700. Some but not many. However, there are supposedly adobe house that have been around that long and the oldest house in the country is supposed to be made of wood, somewhere in Massachusetts.

I have taken an interest in log houses, though not so much an interest in living in one again. It is curious how they have persisted around here (Northern Virginia, U.S.A.). Within about thirty miles of the White House in Virginia, I am aware of the location or recent location of four or five log houses, not to mention two or three one-lane bridges. From here to West Virginia on the way to where my daughter is going to school, a distance of about 75 miles, I pass about a dozen more, not all of which are in habitable condition.

I'm still hoping to hear of someone living in a tower house or castle but a cave would be even more unusual.
 
Not myself, but a friend of mine used to live right next door to John Knox's House (built 1490 and very historical) in Edinburgh. In this image, John Knox's house is the white one in the centre, while my friend lived in the upper storeys of the building on the left (with the stairs up to the door).

A very strange house it was too - the floor in the main room was at least 5 degrees off level, and the style of the woodwork made it feel more like being onboard a ship than in a house.
 
Not really where I live, but I've spent a couple of weeks living in the keep at Rushen castle on the Isle of Man, a couple of weekends in the keep at Dover castle, odd weeks here and there in a C15 barn, and probably my favourite - various weeks/weekends living in Iron age round houses. All living history based, so probably doesn't quite match the question.
 
There are some underground houses in Kinver near where i live,built into the side of a hill,turf roofs and everything,court yards garage the lot.
 
I live in a cottage that was originally built as a chapel some time in the early 19th century.

Although it doesn't look spectacularly different from anything else from those days, the walls (including some of the interior ones) are more than 3 feet thick. It has false doors on the outside that don't open and were just put there for decoration. The "office" I'm sitting in now was originally (we think) the confessional.

George
 
Not me myself but a friend of mine has a house in a little village that dates back to 1500 something. The only draw back is that i'm 6'5 so when i visit i always leave with a lump on my forehead where ive walked into a rafter. DOH!

The only other problem is that the house is that due to its age it is consider grade II (i think) listed so any work that is carried out to the house has to be "like-for-like" so there is no way to "improve" the layout of the hosue without some kind of consent, which was refused. Anyway i'm wandering off topic so i'll shut up now :D

The only other property i can think of is a friend of mine who worked up in Scotland for a while at a christian activity centre lived in Kirkcudbright and rented a room in a converted church.
 
Oh and there are cave dwellings still in use on Kinver edge,how the heck did i forget about that.Its what kinver is famous for,doh! :rolleyes:
 
There is one around the corner from us, which is early 17th c, and the couple that lived there before they passed away, were permantly bent over rom the low height of the ceilings.
Naturally some yuppies bought the place, and they had the floors lowered to increase the height downstairs. Unfortunately, this took it below the water level, so the place now floods. Serves 'em right.... :lmao:
 
clipper said:
My sister lives in a timber cabin/house situated on stilts and over looking a 2 acre lake and woodland, its a bushcrafters dream house.

pete
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These are all rather dream houses, at least in one sense of the word. We might except the Quonset hut.

I would rather like to hear more about the underground houses in Kinver, which I have never heard of. You might suspect the origin of this in the list was the Hobbit stories. There were Indians in the Midwest who lived in a sort of earth covered wood and timber lodge, not strictly underground, however. I am not aware of any other similar dwellings in this country except for the sod houses, also in the midwest.

I also imagine that only certain kinds of dwellings would be of special interest to readers of this forum, so we can forgo the castles, pele towers and bastle houses, river boats and barges and the odd Quonset hut. But cave dwellings, houses on stilts (hadn't thought of that), anything made of logs, bark or grass should be of great interest.

Isn't it an interesting world? In some post I might describe my experiences with log houses if that would be appropriate.
 
I live in a Cob house in Newbury, Berks with my wife and her family. We've built it in our spare time over the last 10 years and it's lovely! Toasty warm in the winter, and really cool in the summer.

As many materials for it as possible were sourced locally and/or from a sustainable supplier. Most of the wooden interior was sourced from tree's fallen from Greenham Common and processed on site using tradtional techniques. It's all pretty cool and eco!

The wife and I have also imported a Finnish design log cabin made from sustainable timber. All very eco-friendly! We started building that last April, and are slowly getting around to finishing it - maybe by Xmas!!!

Drop me an email if you want more details as I don't check the forums nearly as often as I should!
 
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