Building an Anglo-Saxon Pit House with Hand Tools - Part I | Medieval Primitive Bushcraft Shelter

Anglo-Saxon settlers built Early Medieval pit houses with primitive tools, digging foundations, raising earth and wattle walls and thatched or shingle roofs. After gaining victory over the Britons at the Battle of Peonnum in 658 A.D. the Gewissæ pushed south west towards the River Parrett. While the tribal elites fought for power and territorial control Anglo-Saxon freemen settled unclaimed land amongst their Romano-British cousins. The first structures built were pit houses, used first as military outposts and dwellings and then as workshops and storehouses once settlements grew and timber longhouses were erected. Anglo-Saxon pit houses are often found with the remains of loom weights, pottery or metal-working crafts, and are therefore interpreted as craft-related buildings or store houses subsidiary to larger post-built dwellings. Pit houses or sunken featured buildings are the most common structures found in Anglo-Saxon and Early Medieval archaeological remains. Today, all that remains archaeologically of these structures is the pit itself and the accompanying post-holes. There is usually little evidence for floors, walls or roof structures. Reconstructions of Anglo-Saxon pit-houses must therefore incorporate building techniques that are “archaeologically invisible“ in order to be accurate or at least plausible. “Archaeological invisible“ building technologies often proposed for Anglo-Saxon pit houses include A-frame rafters resting on the ground, wattle walls staked into the upcast earth but not below ground level, or walls resting on sill beams. The orientation, pit and post-hole features of this pit house are an accurate reconstruction of Sunken Featured Building 8 excavated at the West Saxon settlement near Lechlade-on-Thames, dated to the 7th century. The archaeological report can be found here: Prehistoric and Anglo-Saxon Settlements to the rear of Sherborne House, Lechlade: excavations in 1997. 2003. C Bateman, D Enright, N Oakey. Despite constant warfare between tribal elites, the Anglo-Saxons often peacefully settled land left unoccupied after the Roman withdrawal from Britain, amongst neighbouring Romano-British communities. This led to considerable cultural exchange between the Anglo-Saxons and Romano-British, resulting in what is now known as Insular culture during the late 7th and 8th centuries. This site had been left uncultivated for many years and had grown wild with blackthorn and bramble. This was cleared with an axe and the roots grubbed up with a mattock. The pit was dug with a mattock and shovel. The pit is 14 feet long by 10 feet wide and 1.8 feet deep, with an entranceway and raised shelf along the south-west long wall. The post-holes are dug to a depth of 1.3 feet below the base of the pit. The simple wooden shovel was carved from a fallen oak limb, based on Early Medieval spade finds. The upcast dirt was banked up along the edges of the pit to form low earth walls. Two large forked hazel poles were cut, destined to be fixed into each gable-end post-hole as supports for the ridge-pole of the roof. Hazel stakes were cut and driven into the upcast earth walls to a depth of about 1 foot, just shy of the ground level, to remain “archaeologically invisible“. Stakes driven deeper than this would have left stake holes potentially identifiable in the archaeological record. Hazel rods were woven in between the stakes to form wattle walls. These wattle walls will be woven to head-height when standing in the base of the pit. Once the low wattle walls are complete, the gable-end posts, ridge-pole and roof will be raised. With thanks to: Herknungr, Musician, playing ’The Wolf Chieftan’. Hector Cole, Blacksmith, for forging the Saxon T-shaped Axe. Grzegorz Kulig, Silversmith, for making the pattern-welded knife. If you would like to support me further, you can become a patron here: Or make a one-off donation: