Q1 - Mud and Straw used as plaster

[charlieboy]

In an under-stairs cupboard in the stone part of my house I have revealed what could be some of the original plaster. To call it plaster is probably incorrect as it seems to be more like a mixture of mud and chopped straw, which I think is called daub. Obviously the house is old (the listing says 17th century) but does anyone know when mud and straw was last used as a plaster?

 

[Keithj]

Daub is a generic name covering a variety of "stuff", but mud and straw is certainly one of the main ones. This house was covered in mud daub up to some time in the 20th century - I have photographs. Our Welsh hideaway of blessed memory had wattle-and-daub internal walls until the "repairers" got stuck in. I would guess that in both cases, daub repairs were being done in the 20th century, although it's probably less likely that it was being used in new builds.

This link gives some interesting background.

 

[Penners]

Yes, clay and straw is known as daub - usually applied to a matrix of woven willow or hazel withies known as wattle - and used as an infill between timber members. Actually, what you've described as mud probably also has a content of animal (usually cow) dung, which apparently gave the daub additional plasticity and adhesion. High quality daub sometimes also had a lime content, but this made it more expensive.

I've no idea when this material was last routinely used, but as Keith observes it probably wasn't too long ago.

 

[Keith Bowman]

Penners will probably say I'm talking rot , but I have heard a theory that the reason why so many Suffolk houses had moats was because they were dug out to provide the peculiarly sticky clay we have here for the daub - presumably both for the main house and the farm buildings and local hovels!

 

[charlieboy]

That is a pity, I was hoping the daub would help me to date this part of the house.

Is there a good easy way of dating a stone building? Dendrochronology of the main beam is all I can think of but I presume that would be a bit pricey. I need every penny for the restoration!

 

[livias]

Adding animal dung to daub for plasticity is one of those old wives tales. If you have ever mixed daub you will know that clay is extremely sticky and that mixing it is HARD WORK. Extra plasticity is not necessary as all it needs to do is be squashed between two wattles but the HARD WORK bit is relevant cos any dauber who owned a cow or a bullock would have found it convenient to corral said animal with the clay and straw and let their hooves do the work. Animal dung came along for the ride as they say ...

HMMMMM Having written that, I might disagree with myself. It is true in Suffolk where the clay is heavy but I have now moved to Bedfordshire and the subsoil where my house is built is gravelly sand. The daub of my house is very sandy too and doesn't hold together nearly as well as Suffolk clay does. Maybe adding animal dung would help.

Digging out a moat to provide the clay for the house is sort of true. Smaller houses would have only had a pond dug out so a moat meant you had a large house so was a status symbol. A moat would have provided more clay than was needed for daubing one house so having the manpower to dig one at all was a status symbol. On a practical note, it would also have helped drain the land inside it which is relevant on the heavy clays of suffolk

 

[Penners]

Penners will probably say I'm talking rot

Penners would never dream of saying any such thing!

I can certainly see the logic of amalgamating the twin requirements of a moat and clay excavation. I suspect that the average moat would produce sufficient clay for a significant number of houses, so perhaps the owner of the Big House supplemented his income by selling his surplus moat spoil.