Via Strange Company, we learn of the old Welsh folk tradition—that has parallels in Türkiye and France—of the “one-night house,” the custom of recognising the right of freehold for an individual, 
usually a group effort, who could arrange to have a dwelling built on common land overnight, which extended if the squatter had a fire burning in the hearth by the following morning, one could claim the property by the length and breadth of an axe-throw from each of the four corners of the house. Pressured by the loss of available, affordable property near established settlements by the land enclosures which began in the seventeenth century, it became a right of passage for young tenants after to marriage to try to set up their own homesteads, though under the law, there was no status to confer a title to the property. And while many cottages were supposedly originally built as tai unnos (the plural form), no wholly genuine examples remain, the structures later expanded and reinforced with more durable materials collected nearby. The in-situ building concept and the use of architectural vernacular has been taken up by modern proponents for modular housing constructed of locally-sourced timber and stone.
synchronoptica
one year ago: assorted links to revisit, a West Wing holiday episode plus geographic panhandles
two years ago: Jean Genie (1972), Word of the Year: NFT, a Strauss waltz, Black Beauty (1877) plus Germany’s new coalition government
three years ago: more links to enjoy, datamoshing, That Was the Week that Was, Words of the Year, the debut of MST3K plus more on turkey pardons
four years ago: build your own llama bookshelf plus an all-terrain Cyber Truck
five years ago: the Singapore Graphic Archive
