Thread by @butserfarm

So, how did our structures fare against #StormEunice? And what can we learn from that?

Starting in the Stone Age... 🧵

The big Horton house looks almost untouched, apart from a few stray bits of thatch. A Stone Age community living in a house like this may actually have been less disrupted by a big storm than many modern families dealing with power cuts were yesterday! #StormEunice

The outbuildings didn't fare so well, though. These will need patch repairs, although in a pinch the gaps could be covered with skins for temporary waterproofing. #StormEunice

It's perhaps worth noting that these are both very small buildings, meaning the angle their thatch has to turn is a lot tighter. It's these corner-like areas that seem to be the worst damaged -- the weak point in the design.

Three cheers for this incredibly hardy bit of thatch, though! The lone survivor from that corner, sticking it out to the bitter end. Respect ✊ #StormEunice

On to the Bronze Age! This house is our most exposed building, and took the full force of the wind yesterday. But implacable and untouched, it doesn't even look like it knows a storm happened! @richardhosgood, bravo!

In general, our more recently thatched houses seem to have fared better -- our new Saxon hall also came out of the storm looking completely fine.

The Iron Age suffered the most. Here the damage seems to have occurred mostly at the very top of the roof -- both the red Danebury and the Little Woodbury (confusingly our largest building) have got a bit of a bad hair day going on up there. #StormEunice

Little Woodbury has also suffered some porch damage -- thatch going round corners again -- but nothing structural, thankfully! You can also see the wooden Danebury has lost some thatch from the edge of its roof; interestingly, this hasn't happened with any other building.

Beside the wooden Danebury, our rebuild of the white Glastonbury barely had any thatch to lose, but it seems it's had some slippage on the left side all the same!

The Moel y Gerddi has fared the best out of our Iron Age roundhouses, looking completely untouched, but it's much older than the other buildings that survived this well. What was the difference-maker?

Perhaps it's simply better thatched. It's also fairly sheltered by the surrounding buildings, depending on the wind direction. Its doorway is facing a different direction to most of the others; could that have made a difference? We'll see what we can find out!

The yellow Glastonbury also survived impressively well, considering that's the building we're taking down on Monday! Half of us didn't expect it to still be here at all... #StormEunice

In other news, the Roman villa is also here. It'd take more than good old #StormEunice to shift this!

Of the Saxon halls, the new one is untouched. The older one, on the other hand, has suffered a little. Again, it's at the top and on corners. But even then, barely more than some tousling! #StormEunice

It's kind of amazing that these structures survive so well, and kind of humbling to think about how connected we are to the people who once lived in them at moments like these. In 2022, we're as powerless against the weather as they were.

Thanks for coming on this journey with us! We'll be studying and repairing the damage over the next few days; come on down if you'd like to see any of that process 🛖😁

If you want to help support us in our work (and get more insights into the past!), check out butserplus.com -- behind-the-scenes documentaries and blog posts as thanks for Patreon-style monthly donations 💚