Meet the MUD LADIES
Beside a secluded little lake, one of the smallest broads in Norfolk, there is a garden. A few flowers wag in the breeze, and there’s a handful of trees, and lots of grass. But the really strange and wonderful crop growing on this plot is the thatched house that stands on the edge. Its walls are fashioned from mud pies: a hand-pressed mixture of clay and sand dug from the garden, with a bit of straw added. The stuff is called cob.
Kate Edwards rhapsodises about it. ‘It’s so sculptural!’ she almost shouts. ‘It’s hilariously, beautifully amazing to work with. It’s joyful to your spirit. Your hands are full of malleable, clayey material, and you are actually building a house out of it.’ It was Kate and Charlotte Eve who built this house, now their home. ‘I met Kate when she’d already learnt to be a cobber,’ says Charlotte. ‘I’d never heard of cob. I’m not practical, I’m more of a writer and musician, but Kate showed me how.’
Kate is a sculptor by training. ‘I made bronzes, and carved natural materials, stone and wood, but I was particularly interested in clay,’ she says. She bought houses and learnt enough about building to make them fit to sell on. It was when she converted a stable into a home that she began to think of building a house from scratch. But she wanted nothing to do with cement. ‘It’s horrible stuff , so environmentally unfriendly. I’d always been an eco-warrior at heart, loving nature and the planet.’
Bonding over the cob; Kate gets the thatch just right; Windows can be any shape you like
About this time, a magazine happened to fall open to reveal a feature on cob building. ‘Oh my God, that’s it,’ thought Kate. Almost instantly, she was on a course in Ireland, 10 glorious days making mud pies and building walls with them – discovering, in the process, that it’s ‘deliriously easy’ to do. If the wall starts to bulge out a bit as it’s being built, you push it back in, or shave a bit off . ‘It is that simple,’ she says, ‘you’re sensually stroking it and smoothing it into place.’
A cob house is quite literally sculpted, moulded and carved to suit the desires of the builder, with window openings made to any shape that takes your fancy, straight or curvy. At first sight, Kate and Charlotte’s bright white and shapely little house is reminiscent of Spain. ‘I am a big Gaudífan’, says Kate.
Cob building is ancient technology. There are houses in existence that are around 10,000 years old, mainly in southern Europe and the Middle East. There are even some in this country that are between 800 and 1,000 years old. Kate’s worked on the renovation of some of them. The enemy of cob construction is failure of the roof to keep the rain out: when it’s wet, unprotected cob simply reverts to mud.
This house is tightly thatched, with Norfolk reed, of course – Kate’s work again. She was about to read a book on how to approach the craft when up popped an email from the BBC Mastercrafts programme, inviting her to Oxfordshire for a sixweek thatching course. ‘We had a test at the end,’ she says, ‘and the examiner said we were like people who’d been doing it for six months.
‘But it’s incredibly hard. You’re climbing up the ladder, supporting your own weight, so your legs are in tension. Then you have to lean over and do the skilled job of getting the reeds tight.’
To have acquired that skill deserves admiration. To practise it in extreme and trying conditions, even more so – and Charlotte delivers. ‘I had to do it in winter,’ she says, ‘so my hands were frozen, they were sticking to the ladder. And it was snowing. But a thatcher checked it and he said the density was good.’
Main picture: Kate and Charlotte slinging the mud
This comradely praise goes down well with Kate, but she’s modest enough to say that the professional thatcher did help her with the ridgework. ‘If the thatch isn’t dense enough, or if the pitch isn’t right, the water will come through. If the pitch is slightly wrong, if it’s too fat at one end, it will look weird. There were so many things that could go wrong.’
But they didn’t. Could she now tackle a roof solo? ‘I could. But whether I’d want to…’ she laughs. Kate and Charlotte run courses for those who want to share their enthusiasm for glorious mud: the simple pleasure of dancing on the clay, sand and straw like French rustics jumping on grapes. ‘We get a huge range,’ says Charlotte, ‘probably equal numbers of men and women.’ The mix is inter-national: they’ve had Japanese, New Yorkers, Canadians, Germans, French and Swiss, as well as Brits.
‘What’s fascinating on a spiritual level,’ says Kate, ‘is that people do tend to bond over the cob, because it’s such an amazing process. Suddenly they have their hands in the mud and it can be so overwhelming, some cry with joy. They’re connecting with themselves. You see their faces change; they become lighter, happy.’
They tell of a mother of five who arrived with long, manicured nails and immaculate make-up. ‘I try to be open-minded,’ says Kate, ‘but I saw her and thought, “she’s just here for the fun”. Anyway, within a few months, with her make-up on and her five children helping, she’d built a beautiful studio. I don’t know how she had time!’
Kate and Charlotte tend to downplay the spiritual aspect, keen to avoid being cast as hippy maniacs, but there’s no denying the buzz they get. ‘The most incredible thing is how it feels to be in a house you built yourself,’ says Kate. ‘Every time I walk past the walls, I stroke the surface and think: “Oh my God, I’ve built this house.”’
For more details about cob courses, workshops and commissions: 01493369952, www.cobcourses.com
Kate Edwards rhapsodises about it. ‘It’s so sculptural!’ she almost shouts. ‘It’s hilariously, beautifully amazing to work with. It’s joyful to your spirit. Your hands are full of malleable, clayey material, and you are actually building a house out of it.’ It was Kate and Charlotte Eve who built this house, now their home. ‘I met Kate when she’d already learnt to be a cobber,’ says Charlotte. ‘I’d never heard of cob. I’m not practical, I’m more of a writer and musician, but Kate showed me how.’
Kate is a sculptor by training. ‘I made bronzes, and carved natural materials, stone and wood, but I was particularly interested in clay,’ she says. She bought houses and learnt enough about building to make them fit to sell on. It was when she converted a stable into a home that she began to think of building a house from scratch. But she wanted nothing to do with cement. ‘It’s horrible stuff , so environmentally unfriendly. I’d always been an eco-warrior at heart, loving nature and the planet.’
Bonding over the cob; Kate gets the thatch just right; Windows can be any shape you likeAbout this time, a magazine happened to fall open to reveal a feature on cob building. ‘Oh my God, that’s it,’ thought Kate. Almost instantly, she was on a course in Ireland, 10 glorious days making mud pies and building walls with them – discovering, in the process, that it’s ‘deliriously easy’ to do. If the wall starts to bulge out a bit as it’s being built, you push it back in, or shave a bit off . ‘It is that simple,’ she says, ‘you’re sensually stroking it and smoothing it into place.’
A cob house is quite literally sculpted, moulded and carved to suit the desires of the builder, with window openings made to any shape that takes your fancy, straight or curvy. At first sight, Kate and Charlotte’s bright white and shapely little house is reminiscent of Spain. ‘I am a big Gaudífan’, says Kate.
Cob building is ancient technology. There are houses in existence that are around 10,000 years old, mainly in southern Europe and the Middle East. There are even some in this country that are between 800 and 1,000 years old. Kate’s worked on the renovation of some of them. The enemy of cob construction is failure of the roof to keep the rain out: when it’s wet, unprotected cob simply reverts to mud.
This house is tightly thatched, with Norfolk reed, of course – Kate’s work again. She was about to read a book on how to approach the craft when up popped an email from the BBC Mastercrafts programme, inviting her to Oxfordshire for a sixweek thatching course. ‘We had a test at the end,’ she says, ‘and the examiner said we were like people who’d been doing it for six months.
‘But it’s incredibly hard. You’re climbing up the ladder, supporting your own weight, so your legs are in tension. Then you have to lean over and do the skilled job of getting the reeds tight.’
To have acquired that skill deserves admiration. To practise it in extreme and trying conditions, even more so – and Charlotte delivers. ‘I had to do it in winter,’ she says, ‘so my hands were frozen, they were sticking to the ladder. And it was snowing. But a thatcher checked it and he said the density was good.’
Main picture: Kate and Charlotte slinging the mudThis comradely praise goes down well with Kate, but she’s modest enough to say that the professional thatcher did help her with the ridgework. ‘If the thatch isn’t dense enough, or if the pitch isn’t right, the water will come through. If the pitch is slightly wrong, if it’s too fat at one end, it will look weird. There were so many things that could go wrong.’
But they didn’t. Could she now tackle a roof solo? ‘I could. But whether I’d want to…’ she laughs. Kate and Charlotte run courses for those who want to share their enthusiasm for glorious mud: the simple pleasure of dancing on the clay, sand and straw like French rustics jumping on grapes. ‘We get a huge range,’ says Charlotte, ‘probably equal numbers of men and women.’ The mix is inter-national: they’ve had Japanese, New Yorkers, Canadians, Germans, French and Swiss, as well as Brits.
‘What’s fascinating on a spiritual level,’ says Kate, ‘is that people do tend to bond over the cob, because it’s such an amazing process. Suddenly they have their hands in the mud and it can be so overwhelming, some cry with joy. They’re connecting with themselves. You see their faces change; they become lighter, happy.’
They tell of a mother of five who arrived with long, manicured nails and immaculate make-up. ‘I try to be open-minded,’ says Kate, ‘but I saw her and thought, “she’s just here for the fun”. Anyway, within a few months, with her make-up on and her five children helping, she’d built a beautiful studio. I don’t know how she had time!’
Kate and Charlotte tend to downplay the spiritual aspect, keen to avoid being cast as hippy maniacs, but there’s no denying the buzz they get. ‘The most incredible thing is how it feels to be in a house you built yourself,’ says Kate. ‘Every time I walk past the walls, I stroke the surface and think: “Oh my God, I’ve built this house.”’
For more details about cob courses, workshops and commissions: 01493369952, www.cobcourses.com