Restoration of a Trullo, Puglia

In September, I spent a month working with a restoration team in Southern Italy rebuilding a trullo. Trullis are conical dry stone buildings which are only found in a small area of Puglia. We were restoring one on a residential property just outside Ceglie Messapica. It was quite a diverse international team and a challenge not only to complete the project but also to work in harmony together and with our Italian Trullaro.

Trullis have 2 layers from the ground to the peak. The circular base and walls have to be wide enough to support the roof which means that the room size inside is quite small compared with the diameter of the structure. The inner roof is made up of corbled stones, each one is dressed on all six sides to create a smooth inner cone. The outer roof is made up of chianche or tile-like stones. These are also dressed to fit together and prevent water ingress. The two layers are held together with skill, gravity and harting stones.

We ate incredible local food, swam in a perfect blue sea, explored a huge ghost city, made pasta shaped abstractly like ears, drank red wine and laved in olive oil.

Inner cone of a trullo in need of restoration

Lintel of an inner door, linking two trulli

Taking advantage of rare steps up the roof to do some yoga on top of an ancient trullo.

Alberobello, UNesco heritage site

Wine

Day 1, 60's additon of cement render affected the integrity of the chianche

Love limestone

After removing the cement and the chianche

Chianche laid out for reuse

Dressing a new chianche
For more details, watch this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P-wjj8XDFa4

Selecting the perfect chianche

The peak to aim for

Our Trullaro, Mario, checking the angle of the laid stone

Harting

Grapes for this season's vintage

The corbled walls of a new 'Scottish Trullo'

Ripe figs PYO

The Team

Blissful evening after working hard

Pomegrate PYO

Applying lime plaster

An olive tree growing up through a ruined trullo

An organic olive grove, dotted with ruins

I was working in collaboration with Thea Alvin of My Earthwork, Amanda Roelle of Archistrati and Norman Haddow of Walls Without Mortar. It was an honour.

This month was transformative and I want to share Thea's words with you.

"There is something quite magical, literally, about Italy. It simply exists, it doesn’t boast, or flaunt, though surely, it has fathered and mothered masters of all genres. It doesn’t hold itself loftily above others, though its pedestal is pretty tall.

Italy, my Italy, is one filled with a timeless feeling of wanting to contribute to its effortless lineage of stone, of stone art, of small works, nothing masterful, of the daily, every day workings, the things that make life real and rich.

Crushing thyme on my slippered feet, I walk below the bay tree setting the table in a vineyard for dinner, this night, mid summer, we serve 18. The meal is still in the kitchen and an 8 year old Italian set of golden curls wildly bundled and wrapped in something velvet and tasseled helps me, correcting my diction, and putting the forks on the proper side of the plate. She abruptly rejects a spotted wine glass, and seriously delivers the water pitchers with their beaded lace coverlets. The train from Switzerland screams through the valley and the Churches in town begin to ring out seven peals. Dinner in an hour, the roses, ripe right on time, the pears and figs and plums too. The grapes are heavy on the vine, but they need another month or so until its time, and tray upon tray of tomatoes were carefully split and laid to dry in the sun. It’s so deep in layers of sensation, that the top or the bottom is intertwined and the flavors that soak into my skin and heart can be recalled even now, in early spring with such real authenticity, that I well with tears. This place has so formed me, transformed me, informs me. These mountains, these hearty joyful people, this music, the wine, the stone. The language of place. The shape of the smell... We sit there for hours and hours sharing the meal, laughing, crying sometimes, but above all, soaking it in. all of it, each one of the parts of it, soaking it in until saturated and we begin to swim in it and splash in it.

Italy, this Italy is rich in something so tangible, so non materialistic. It is fluent in love. It speaks the language of art, and this is such a simple verse. It speaks of lizards on white washed plastered walls. It speaks of palm trees hosting visiting owls. Its splashing rivers diverted momentarily, create pools and basins to enjoy, to dip ones hands into the cold freshness and absorb the moment to hold against the tedium, the tears, the labour of all the balance of the days."

Rolling Stones

Bread Oven for Danish Refugee Women

I had a very exciting email out of the blue from an organisation called FAKTI. They are a refugee centre for women and children in the centre of Copenhagen. A safe and welcoming place where women can come to learn Danish and English; to converse in their own languages with other refugees and to have access to legal and medical aid while they prepare their applications for asylum in Denmark.
These people have suffered great hardships in their journey to Copenhagen which leave physical and emotional scars long after their applications have been processed. Many continue to attend the Fakti Centre to help new arrivals once they have established new lives in the city.

I was invited to come and stay with a Danish woman and her family for a long weekend and build a bread oven in a 'Garden of Tranquility' which is being built by the women on land adjoining the centre.  Mette met me at the airport in a nissan micra full of kids clothes, car seats, bags of clay and a wheelbarrow.

We gathered materials from the farm she lives on and volunteer help from the centre, among Mette's friends and family, and a Catalan father and daughter who were 'Wwoof'ing for the summer holidays. The women  at the centre recognised the process of making cob for the oven from their own experience in Syria and Afghanistan and taught the skinny Danish men how to put their backs into it. 9 nationalities were represented and language was no barrier.

The act of making over the scrub land is in itself a balm to many. For those without the strength to help dig over beds, the garden will become a place to meet, have meals, for children to play and for scars to begin to fade. One of the key elements of the garden is an earthen bread oven.

For me, the Danish attitude to asylum seekers puts the British attitude to shame and I am not surprised that a rising number of disillusioned young men are becoming radicalised in the UK. These women have a place to find support and education they can feel empowered to make the most of their chances in Europe. If they need help with their children, they can find it here. When I left, they cried at the taste of home I had helped them build in their Danish garden. I cried to be leaving.

The boys learning how it's done

Homemade biscuits and hot coffee for the workers

Mixing clay slip

Women together

Mette, loving her oven

English and Danish work boots

Planning the garden design

Tadelakt on a Pizza Oven

My Belgian friends Saskia and Steffi came to visit me and so I got them working on protecting a pizza oven for the winter in a friend's garden.

Hempcrete on Exmoor

After a successful experience with Hemp-lime Construct, I joined them again to work on this beautiful new-build on the highest point on Exmoor. In November. Following a disastrous first experience with a fraudulent hemp-crete supplier, this homeowner bravely decided to risk hempcrete for a second time but this time with us. The old mud-lime mix had been removed by the time we arrived, oak lathes replaced or repaired and we were set. The building has silver shimmering chestnut shingles on the roof, copper guttering and a red dry stone retaining wall in the garden. A straw bale garage had been build as well and this became our go-to place when the cold outside became too bitter for our fingers. It was a lovely space and the incredible views far outweighed the downsides of working in the winter, even after mice ate my crumpets. 

We received this email from the homeowner a few weeks later;

"Hello All

Hoping you had a good time at Christmas and didn't suffer too much from the storms. 

Dunmoor survived very well  - and no water in through the roof! The winds came from the south west. We'll have see what happens if we have rain driven from another direction.

Since you left the doors have been replaced, the sills have been set in ready for the windows whose frames are now painted and the ceilings are lathed ready for plastering. I've bought a moisture meter.

So we're ready to go and all feeling very positive about the new year.

Thanks for your incredible hard work and your good cheer - and of course the beautiful job."

Hemp-lime Restoration of a Tudor House, Oxford

This grade2 listed Tudor house was destroyed by fire. Working with Hemp-Lime Construct I was a part of the team involved in the restoration work. Hempcrete or hemplime (same thing, different names) is close enough to the original materials in the building that we were approved to use it by English Heritage. It had taken Pat 2 years of living in a caravan and washing in a bucket in the shadow of her burnt out home to get permissions and insurance together to fund the restoration. By the time we were finished, the wood burner was lit, the rooms were warming up and she was almost ready to begin decorating. Hemp-Lime Construct went back to lime render inside and out once the hempcrete had time to cure and she was thrilled with the results.