Chestnut Cottage

Chestnut Cottage

Chestnut Cottage was built using sweet chestnut in the round for the structure with oak cladding on two faces and cob walls with a lime render on the other two sides.

We decided to add cord wood and multi coloured bottles in these walls, giving a great variety of textures and colours.

The windows are glazed with toughened glass, and give views of the pigs, chickens and goats at Ida Darwin Farm Shop, Cambridge. This structure is open to everybody who shops there.

The cottage has a living turf roof, with the turf sitting on soil, a flexible membrane liner and then underlay on the tanalised planks. The upstand around the perimeter of the roof holding all of this in, is made of oak.

We experimented with a lot of different building techniques with this structure. Take a look inside:

Do you want to have a hobbit house of your own? There are many ways of replicating aspects of this design, to create a totally bespoke hobbit house for you!

Also, you may like to read our blog about the build

Ida Darwin Farm Shop, Cambridge

Opening times: please visit when the farm shop is open for business, check up to date opening times here.