We’ve spent most of the last couple of weeks rather preoccupied with cob, largely because ever since we moved to this house, we’ve known that at some point, we would need to hack off all the (cement) render on the outside and all the plaster on the inside, in order to replace it with lime render and plaster, which is standard fare for the breathable nature of healthy cob walls. (Of course, largely, when I say ‘we’ here, you can take it that I actually mean Quercus, because I have copped out and retreated, armed with the witchling, to a safe distance.)

Anyway, it’s been interesting… to say the least. Over the weekend, we put the scaffolding tower up (we’re too mean to get the house fully scaffolded professionally, not least because to do so would mean getting a road permit, and possibly getting the part of the lane outside our house closed for a bit as the road, it narrow, and the scaffold, it wide) and Quercus set to with the ol’ SDS drill. The back wall of the house faces south, and, as such, we’ve never been able to understand why it appears to be the dampest part of the house. Well, that all makes rather more sense now that its cloaking device has been removed – the entire wall – well, the bottom half thereof – has been patched up with breeze blocks and fairly patchwork brick repairs.

Admittedly, some of it has been pointed with lime putty, but the general impression is that at some point, the house started to fall outwards at the top, probably because there was no bracing across from front to back (there is a – clearly much later – brace in our bedroom which ties the walls together, as well as providing handy support for the ceiling, constantly on the verge of general and wholesale collapse; as it stands, only little whispers of it manage so egregious a rebellion), so that the walls were no longer really covered by the thatch, and then water got in at the top, made its way slowly downwards, showing what one can only describe as a regrettable tendency to return to Mother Earth, stopping at the bottom of the cob wall, and gently festering away there until the cob was, to put it technically, utterly buggered. Roll forward a few decades, and some bright spark thinks ‘ooh – that don’t look too good; hang on – I know I’ve got just the thing around here somewhere…’ before producing said blocks and generally butchering the otherwise pretty good wall. The cob here is apparently good, in general; this morning, Quercus learned from a very lovely cob expert that, had our house been about five miles to the north-west of here, where the cob was made from different clay, the front wall of our house would have collapsed some time ago.

As it is, it’s very, very damp – ‘wringing wet’ were his actual words – but it’s still standing, and, hopefully, with a few weeks of no render at all – ‘I’m nekkid! Nekkid!’ – the walls will dry out and we’ll then get on to replacing the render with the appropriate lime mix. In the meantime, we need to acquire five or six acro props to spread the load on the wall at the front, and we are still adjusting to a slight feeling of unease each time we open the bedroom window, not least as the view is now framed with a dark reddish-brown where previously only cream was visible…

One thing I am really enjoying about this process is seeing the house in its state of undress. It’s quite a thrill, seeing cob which was put up in 1650. 1650. I mean. Milton was alive. I also find the colour of the bare cob very appealing; coming from a predominantly chalky area where white hillsides abounded and the fields were light as a result, I’ve always noticed the Devon red – it’s almost terracotta, and when the ploughing takes place each year, it’s as if the fields are made of giant slabs of molten chocolate, carefully arranged for maximum more-ishness. This house is so very much of its time, and of its place; it positively bellows ‘Devon’ at you as you explore the lumps of cob, the pieces of straw, the, well, frankly odd pieces of wood set in at rakish angles. (Though we’re not exploring some of these aspects very closely; when a gentle poke elicits a small landslide in response, one is apt to remove one’s investigating paw and beat a hasty – if carefully-paced – retreat.)

At least while the outside is somewhat… crumbly, inside, we lurch ever closer to a workable kitchen. And part of that lurching has been brought about by the much-desired creation of A Red Wall. And yes, it is a red which warrants capitals. And possibly a man with white gloves walking six paces ahead of it, for that matter. Behold: the wall of redness. (Makes a change from the sword of power.) Also, note new door, with which I am unspeakably pleased, not least because it releases us from the tyranny of Wixon’s wildlife release programme, to wit: find small mammal (or bird; he is not fussy) – bring into house – and… release! Red wall + no dead critters on living room floor = the definition of happiness.