The Cob Story
- Rothai Mill
- 1 hour ago
- 7 min read
Are you ready to hear our sob story? I mean cob story?
It has been nearly three years since the inception of this little project. Back in 2023 when we were putting the wetland in place, we asked the digger man to make a little rectangular dip in the ground for our foundation (in hindsight it ended up a little too deep). Then nothing happened for almost a year. It was our intention to hold a cob workshop at the first SPAB party but as no teacher was found at the time, this idea fell through.
It was resurrected the following year when the original location for SPAB’s 2024 Working Party came up against some roadblocks at relatively short notice and we were asked if we would host a second one, given that we already had a tried and tested setup. As such, different content was considered a plus and well… the cob hut which hadn’t been started was brought up... so we got working on the plinth pretty lively.
As you may well know, a good hat and good boots are essential for cob, which is much more vulnerable to the whims of the Irish weather. A stone plinth, dry or mortared, limits the amount of moisture getting into the wall through capillary action from the ground so it was essential we build a base wide enough for the wall (600mm) and high enough to rise at least 150mm above ground level (and this is why I said the hole may have been dug a little deep, because we ended up doing a whole lot of work below ground). As it is, the 150 seems a bare minimum, I would have liked to go even higher. The depth, on the other hand, was possibly a little over the top for the size of the hut but then again, a deep footing isn’t necessarily bad, if you have the time, the stone and the skill…
We didn’t have any of those things but we thought, as we often do… “how hard can it be?”
In the beginning, Chris cracked on very well on his own. That was when we still had the big stones, which provided a really solid base. We started off thinking this would be a dry wall base, however, halfway through the process, the instructor for the workshop came over for a reccy, and advised us to do it with mortar (of course he did, he goes by Limemaster 😜). He said to pour sloppy lime mortar into the wall already built. It was messy, infuriating, it felt like it was not going in… but in hindsight, the dry wall base was well built so whatever went in only needs to do so much…
Coincidentally, and predictably, the next few weeks were ridiculously wet, which is just what you wanted for lime mortar work. We did what we could, covering it with tarp to keep it dry. Thinking back, I have no idea how we got all that sand round the back but this was the time we really moved from the whisk we’d been using up to this point, for the limited amount of pointing mortar, to the cement mixer (on long-term rental from PJ Hire), mixing and building in pissing rain. I distantly remember the time as utter misery. We had a little help towards the end and on the morning of the working party we had a solid-looking base, that was immediately covered up, never to be seen again.
We completed lift 1 out of 5 that weekend under the expert guidance of Limemaster. We opted for the shutter method as this would allow us to continue without the many hands the workshop provided. The shutter making was part of the workshop, as was the shutter filling and the latter was actually great dirty fun. Very little skill needed to stuff the mud into the shutter. Maybe recognising the occasional bunch of organic material that was not to go in, but other than that it was very beginner friendly.
So we had our first lift done at the end of August 2024 and took the shutter down a couple of weeks later to reveal the work of art. But of course at that point we’d run out of good weather. Still a little unsure about our digger skills, and with plenty to do on the house, we covered it up for winter and left it alone.
It was next resurrected in spring 2025, when we were approached by the NBHS about holding a “Taking on a Traditional House” event in June that year. Shutters made and ready to go, we figured it was a good opportunity to take advantage of the many hands and add the second lift, through what we already knew was a pretty fun workshop. This time, rather than using the pile of slightly contaminated clay from the wetland dig, Limemaster Brian decided to dig the clay right out of the ground. It was cleaner and better, and you can really tell the difference in quality by looking at the two bottom lifts.
And just like that, lift 2 out of 5 was completed in June 2025. Due to good weather, the shutter came down a week later and, in August, Chris and I were toying with the idea of putting on another couple of lifts before winter and while not overly confident in our own digger skills we thought “how hard can it be” and proceeded to hire a digger. With the help of a participant from both working parties and fellow Cavan-based derelict house saviour Ilyes we ended up struggling our way through the lift 3 out of 5 in these fashionable mud boots.
In September / October, due to the great success, we thought we’d get one more lift on before the weather really turns, so we went ahead and loosened the shutter so it’s quicker to undo once we had someone to give us a hand with moving it up. Then we looked into digging hire for what was promising to be a lovely weekend. And that was the beginning of the undoing. We didn’t manage to get a digger. It was builders' holiday week and apparently they were all hired out. We had to abort the mission at lift 3.
Then it started raining... It rained until April 2026.
The hole for clay extraction filled up and, being clay, doesn’t drain, ever. Being deep, it also doesn’t dry. Newts moved in over winter so it’s now a newt pond.
Fortunately we managed to get a lift worth of clay from across the river, where our old digger man was doing some excavations.
With the shitty weather, we decided to focus on the house until spring. But we forgot about the loosened shutter. When the first downpours cut us off from the wetland, we didn’t even cover it as the shutter was “holding it together”. This was the result when we checked on it in January.
When it stopped raining in mid-April I signed up for a weekend cob repair workshop in Pallas Green with the wonderful Tom Pollard. I came back from it armed with even more confidence in the "how hard can it be" approach and, mere 4 weeks later in late May 2026, I was nearly back in October 2025 - some real time travel success here...
Now I am saying it like that, but it was actually evening after evening of digging some hard as concrete mud, wetting it and trampling on it until it became malleable, a bucket at a time, as it's so heavy, and fixing it just enough that it doesn't start bulging under its own weight. I am very happy to have learned this skill, but still annoyed I had to waste a month of prime weather to do it.
After this, things got moving, lift 4 out of 5 came somewhat out of left field after we bought a barbecue and organised a little brick making event. We also ended up raising the shutter and unexpectedly finished the weekend by filling it up, courtesy of the late digger collection. This was early June, but it too is until late July to source additional clay and somewhat unexpected kitten-shaped life things happened to put a stick in the spokes. But finally for August bank holiday weekend we hired a digger to finish lift 5 and a little extra on the gables. We also put in the wall plates, erected the rafters and not long after fitted the collar ties, took the external shutter off, put up battens and sheets.
I have to note here that Chris has become something of a digger expert going from a lad who’s nearly knock me down with the shutter at lift 4 to weaving the bucket around between wobbly rafters at lift 5.
The roof resulted in such a huge visual change. The whole thing now looks like an actual building, which is a little surreal. We've just spent the final few days scrapping the flashings together from leftover sheets and riveting them into long pieces and thus minimising the waste. We're also reusing the ridge that came off the cottage.
So now just the render and limewash and doors and windows... In fact I've been having a really hard time picking a colour for the doors. We have a green theme going on on site, but for this little hut I am thinking about paying homage to the clay and red oxide and earthy theme so I have been looking at the ochres, siennas and umbras. I have shortlisted a few... so please help me choose! I have been making my own linseed oil paint and I’ll be doing the same with whichever pigment I get, but more on that next time...
What colour should I paint the door?
Red Ochre
Yellow Ochre
Ochre Havana
Raw Sienna
You can check out the step by step gallery for the hut or any other documented parts of the site if you take a stroll down our Journey Map.
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