Pentiddy is a family home built by hand between 2011-2013 in Cornwall, England using local wood, lime, and clay. Anthony and Ele Waters built the home themselves with help from volunteers using traditional building techniques like a round wood cruck frame. The 95 sqm home has an open living area, 3 bedrooms, and is off-grid with power from a small wind turbine and solar panels. Anthony and Ele gained planning permission for their permanent residence by demonstrating their commitment to making a subsistence living from the surrounding woodlands.

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A family home made by hand
with wood, lime and clay.
Pentiddy is not just a house, it’s an integral part of the life Ele and Anthony
Waters have built for their family. The family’s livelihood comes from the
surrounding woodlands and the house is an expression of their love and
respect for the land and the materials that come from it. The house is
supported by a round wood ‘cruck frame’ of a type used since medieval
times.
Introduction
Pentiddy
Key dates
Purchase of the land : 2001
Established a community
woodland : 2001-2003
Planning permission to build a
permanent residence : 2009
Felling trees and preparing
materials : 2010
Construction : 2011-2013
Truro
Exeter
Pensilva
South facade - Photo © Celia Robbins - CSBT

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Context
For Anthony and Ele, Pentiddy is a
long term project through which
they have achieved the goals of
making a living from the land, and
creating their family home. They are
deeply committed to the land and
working to preserve and enhance
it while building a secure future for
their family. The house they have
built is intrinsic to their stewardship
of the land and is part of a larger
project, rather than being an end in
itself.
Their overarching aim is to care
for the land using permaculture
principlesandtoearnalivingthrough
green woodworking, workshops,
a forest school and green burials.
Achieving this has been a long term
commitment, starting with their
purchase of 27 acres of land in 2001
and culminating, twelve years and
two children later, when they moved
into the house at Christmas in 2013.
The ethos of the house was to use
as many local materials as possible
and to make it resilient to future
changes in the climate and society;
integral to this is independence
from mains electricity and other
external services. The other guiding
principal was to design a house the
family could build themselves, with
help from friends and volunteers.
Anthony’s existing skills in green
woodworking thus influenced many
of the design decisions.
Plan © Anthony Waters
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Building overview
Layout and orientation
Pentiddy is a 95 sq m L-shaped two-
storey house, with an open living
area on the ground floor, three
bedrooms and a bathroom on the
upper floor. The layout is designed
to allow heat to circulate naturally
from a centrally placed wood
burning stove, with a small gravity-
fed radiator serving the bathroom.
The house sits on granite pad
foundations which support the
cruck frame, the posts of which
accommodate the sloping site. The
house is oriented a few degrees
off south to make the best use of
its views, as well as solar gain. The
hillside position is exposed, which
has necessitated protection of the
natural materials being used.
Services
The house is not connected to any
mains services; the family use wood
for heating and a small Air 403 wind
turbine and 250 W solar array for
power. They are more interested
in reducing their need for power
than increasing generating capacity.
The house has an outside dry
composting toilet; a choice which
both minimises water use and
necessitates regular interaction with
the outdoors! Water is harvested
from the adjoining barn for washing
and grey water treated by a reed
bed.
Materials
Specially harvested and tightly
compacted barley and oat straw
bales measuring 100 x 50 x 35 cm
form the core of the exterior walls.
External lime render was applied to
the straw over a substrate of reed
matting. Hydraulic lime was used,
which came as a powder and was
mixed on site. The exterior treatment
was informed by university research
demonstrating that, in the Cornish
Storage of straw- Photo © Anthony Waters

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Technical focus :
Round wood cruck
frame and frame
raising
Round wood cruck frame
The cruck frame is a traditional
method of supporting a timber
building which allows the wood to
be used in its natural round state.
V-shaped cruck frames are erected
separately and tied along the roof
ridge with long ridge pole. Anthony
and Ele learned about this type of
building through time spent with
Ben Law, an expert in green wood
construction and they were inspired
and informed by his books.
The larch used for the cruck frame
came from Stara Woods at nearby
Upton Cross. By coincidence,
Anthony discovered that the
timber selected for the build had
been planted in the year of his
birth. The sawn wood came from
St Neot, and was milled on site at
climate, lime works best when
protected by an air gap and
cladding. Hence, larch cladding
has been placed over 2inch stud
walls creating an air gap. The whole
upper storey is clad in larch, and the
lime render on the lower storey is
protected by a verandah running
the full length of the house. On the
inside, sub-layers of clay made from
the soil surrounding the house sit
beneath clay plaster.
The roof is made from reclaimed
Cornish Delabole slates; pitches on
both the main roof and adjoining
lean-to were calculated to maximise
solar generation. The roof and floor
are insulated with Warmcel recycled
cellulose.
« Butter pat joints » assembling - Photo © An-
thony Waters

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Pentiddy. Douglas fir was used for
the floor joists, tongue and groove
floorboards, rafters, window frames
and studwork.
Frame raising
Having started on site on the spring
solstice in 2011, the frame raising
took place over a windy weekend
in May ’11. Hard work and nerve
racking – the process was also a
celebration and brought together
over 40 friends and helpers who
raised the building using tripods
and winches counter-weighted by
vehicles. The frame is tied together
using oak pegs. A key technique is
the ‘butter pat’ joint which creates
flat surfaces where two posts meet;
a laser spirit-level ensured the
precision needed to achieve a sound
building from irregular materials.
The raising of the frame, including a
video and many other aspects of the
build are documented on Pentiddy’s
blog : http://pentiddy.blogspot.
co.uk/.
Barriers and solutions
Sharing skills through the
building process
Ele and Anthony recognise and
value their house build as a process,
not just a product. The inevitable
problems, delays and stresses all
have their outcome in lessons
learned that will help both Pentiddy
itself and others in the future. The
acquisition of skills, rather than
reliance on paid experts, was thus
central to the undertaking. The
V-shaped “full cruck” frame » - Photo © Anthony Waters

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consuming. Simply accommodating
the irregularities in round wood
was a huge part of the build, and
if there were a ‘next time’, Anthony
would substitute non-visible round
wood with sawn wood, e.g. in
the underfloor support beams.
Another challenging area has been
in supporting the bale walls above
window openings.
The use of lime and clay was a big
learning process, helped by advice
from Cornish Lime and Clayworks
plasters. Anthony found it difficult
to get definitive advice on the
appropriate lime render mix, settling
eventually on 2:1 sand to lime.
Attempts were made to produce a
clay finish for the interior walls from
on-site materials, but this proved
unsuccessful and clay plasters were
purchased from Clayworks.
learning of skills was shared with
volunteers who lived and worked
with the family during the build,
and with larger groups on special
occasions like the frame raising.
Over 50 people attended open days
to experience the application of clay
plaster.
Keeping the Cornish rain out
The Cornish climate will always
make itself felt; the house is
designed to withstand it, but the
build was frequently influenced by
it. There was great time pressure
in the autumn of 2011, when the
straw was due to be harvested and
delivered, but the team were not
ready to begin installing it. A difficult
decision was taken to delay its use
and store the straw over winter, to
keep it dry. Another factor here was
that the external lime render cannot
be applied in cold weather. Once
the straw started going in during
April 2012, Pentiddy was hit by an
exceptional period of rain, which led
to further delays and worries about
whether the straw had got wet.
Time-consuming tasks
Many of the lessons from the build
lie simply in underestimating how
long things take, these include;
stripping bark from the wood, fitting
the bales, applying the lime and clay.
The L-shaped design is successful
and Anthony would not want to
change it, but it created valleys in
the roof and added complexity to
the frame, all of which were time
Focus : Gaining
planning permission
to build a permanent
residence on a
woodland site
The UK planning system restricts
the construction of new homes
in the countryside. An exception
can be the «agricultural tie» where
a home is built to accommodate
those working on farmland. These
decisions are related to the farm’s
income and ability to support a

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The first winter, 2013-14, was
a stormy one and the house
weathered it well. After living in a
mobile home for years, the family
are enjoying a warm and cosy space
that is easily heated from its wood
burning range. Electricity use is
minimal, with the family adapting
Performance
number of livelihoods.
Anthony and Ele originally
established the principle of an
agricultural tie to the land, and
gained temporary planning
permission to occupy the land
for five years. This gave them the
time to make a case for permanent
permission. Initially, the agricultural
appraisal officers did not accept
there was a need for the family to
live on site in order to work the
land. Eventually, the permission
was granted on the grounds of the
family making a subsistence living–
this means they did not have to
demonstrate the level of income
that would normally be associated
with conventional farming. Their
plans to burn charcoal helped sway
the decision. The family found more
than once that reluctance on the
part of the authorities changed to
support when they showed officials
around the property, discussed
their plans and demonstrated their
commitment.
Interior - Photo © Servane Guihaire - Constructys
Bretagne
to its availability. They currently
make occasional use of a generator,
but hope to acquire an additional
second hand turbine and batteries
from a neighbour.
Looking ahead, a quote from
Anthony’s blog sums up how they
hope others can benefit from the
experiences won at Pentiddy:
«We are excited at the thought of
actually venturing out of our inward
looking past few years to explore
the wider community and lend our
knowledge and help to other people
venturing into exciting projects of a
similar nature.»

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Stakeholders
Design & project management : Anthony
Waters and Ele Waters
Structural Engineer : Adams Consulting
Building regulations : JHAI Ltd
Wood : Stara Wood, Glencross Estate an
Pentiddy
Granite : from the De Lank quarry on
Bodmin moor
Lime : The Cornish Lime Company, Bodmin
Clay plaster : Clayworks, Manaccan,The
Lizard
Ceiling plastering : Mark Stanley
Straw : John and James Kendall, Tencreek
Farm
Slate : Kenyon Canopy, Saltash
Windows : FD Hall & Sons, Liskeard
Costs
Materials and equipment : £50,000
Labour : £10,000
The total cost is £60,000, of which around
£10,000 will be recovered through the
sale of equipment, including the mill and
scaffolding, which is no longer required.
The build was realised through a huge
amount of volunteer help, and enthusiasm.
Link
http://pentiddy.blogspot.co.uk/
Interior - Photo © Servane Guihaire - Constructys Bretagne
Contact
Cornwall Sustainable Building Trust
http://csbt.org.uk/