A CHEAP COTTAGE

Marlborough Express, Volume LIII, Issue 270, 17 November 1919, Page 3

A CHEAP COTTAGE

BUILT OF PISE-DE-TERRE

Building at less than one-tenth the cost of bricks has resulted from a successful experiment in Surrey, (states the London Daily News). Here at Newlands Corner, n~ar Guildford, the outer walls of a cottage have been erected at a cobt «;f only £20, and the whole of the work has been carried out by nn invalided R.A.M.C. sergeant and his son. These walls, it seems, would have cost over £200 if carried out in burnt brick. They are an experiment in pise-de-terre construction, and the cottage, says a report on the .'natter (by the architect in charge) .«ppenring in the current issue of the Spectator, contains a living tnom. p?;rlor, three bedrooms, scullory, bitthrooiu, and coal-hole.

Pise-de-terre construction recalls the ancient^ method <>f ottage building, in which various r;:aterials, according to locality, were <istd for the walls—such as the cob used in Devonshire. It consists,: as an early number of the Spectator points out, of dry earthen walls, about iSiri. to 24in. thick, which owe their solidity to ramming between wooden casings previously placed in position en both sides. The walk are built in stagings 3ft. in height the wooden casings being raised as required. The walls, when completed give, says the Spectator, a surface as hard as ournS brick. It is suggested that rf-speciil care is taken to avoid irregularities on the interior side they might: be papered without plastering. ' The earth used in Mi1 Struchey's experimental cottage has dug from immeditely around the' building, and there has been no carting whatever, and practically no' ''heeling. All the rooms are of the a oas laid down'by the Board of Agriculture jis desirable for the houses of allliolders, and their cubic content; is considerably in excess of the standard.