: The Celtic Village

Who is smiling on the newest roundhouse in Wales, today? Dafydd and his construction team step back after months of work to celebrate at our mini and informal opening of the latest Moel y Gaer roundhouse. They are congratulated. I've formulated a ritual for the opening. Thanks for joining us at our special event, we all hope you enjoyed following the history of the roundhouse.

We've almost finished the roundhouse. Dafydd and the team have thatched the roof and as you can see we've experimented with the design by creating a small vent for the smoke. I hope this will work but time will tell when we light our first fire! I need to limewash the interiors and then we're all done. We will be celebrating all the hard work this Saturday. If you are around join us at 3pm for the official opening in the 'Celtic Village'. Thanks to everyone for their support and interest in this project over the last four months and to the volunteers, Dylan Hammond and Lauren Parfitt, who have helped us.

Over the last fortnight we've been working on the roof and it's almost finished. We've used seven bails of reed to thatch the roof, each bail contains between 80-100 bundles of reed. As you can see we've gone through quite a lot!

Take a look at photographs. You can see the bundles being placed in between the hazel rod purlins before Dafydd uses a wooden paddle to beat the roof into shape.

We've been working on the purling which will hold the thatch. I'm really interested in how we build the roof. Dafydd, Tim and Andy have even allowed me to help out! I'll be in the Village between Monday and Thursday next week. If you are around call in.

The house is taking shape now it's all quite exciting. You can see how it will eventually look when Dafydd and the team have finished their work.

Dafydd's had plenty to think about though. The first six rafters went up easily but then he had to decide where to place the ring-beam - inside or outside the rafters? As you can see from the pictures he place them outside the rafters. You can find out why in Dafydd's diary.

Once the ring beam was placed the next set of rafters went up quickly. They were notched, allowing them to hook onto the ring-beam and then lashed with tarred string. A second ring-beam was then placed lower down. Before long we will be thatching.

Link to Dafydd's diary http://www.theroundhouse.org/dafsdiary.htm