Hand Carving Windows for the Anglo-Saxon Pit House | Early Medieval Carpentry and Live-Edge Joinery

Anglo-Saxon settlers built Early Medieval pit houses with primitive tools, digging foundations, raising earth and wattle walls and thatched or shingle roofs.
After gaining victory over the Britons at the Battle of Peonnum in 658 A.D. the Gewissæ pushed south west towards the River Parrett.
While the tribal elites fought for power and territorial control Anglo-Saxon freemen settled unclaimed land amongst their Romano-British cousins.
The first structures built were pit houses, used first as military outposts and dwellings and then as workshops and storehouses once settlements grew and timber longhouses were erected.
Today, all that remains archaeologically of these structures is the pit itself and the accompanying post-holes. There is usually little evidence for floors, walls or roof structures.
Reconstructions of Anglo-Saxon pit-houses must therefore incorporate building techniques that are "archaeologically invisible" in order to be accurate or at least plausible.
"Archaeological invisible" building technologies often proposed for Anglo-Saxon pit houses include A-frame rafters resting on the ground, wattle walls staked into the upcast earth but not below ground level, or walls resting on sill beams.
The orientation, pit and post-hole features of this pit house are an accurate reconstruction of Sunken Featured Building 8 excavated at the West Saxon settlement near Lechlade-on-Thames, dated to the 7th century. The archaeological report can be found here: Prehistoric and Anglo-Saxon Settlements to the rear of Sherborne House, Lechlade: excavations in 1997. 2003. C Bateman, D Enright, N Oakey.
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Despite constant warfare between tribal elites, the Anglo-Saxons often peacefully settled land left unoccupied after the Roman withdrawal from Britain, amongst neighbouring Romano-British communities.
This led to considerable cultural exchange between the Anglo-Saxons and Romano-British, resulting in what is now known as Insular culture during the late 7th and 8th centuries.
Hazel logs were cleaved and hewn into planks to form the window.
As the hazel logs were thin, with twisted grain, the planks were cleft tangentially, to maximise the width of the plank, with just two planks produced from each log. The grain was too twisted to split out two planks from each half.
The planks were marked up with charcoal and a straight edge.
Hazel stems as old and thick as this are rare, it was interesting to see the beautiful light grain and medullary ray pattern, similar to oak, although much lighter.
On two of the planks, a protruding cleat was carved on one side, to allow an attachment for closing the window and timing it against the central frame strut. These cleats are based on evidence from the Nydam ship, which had planks with cleats which were lashed to the internal frames.
The planks were edge-jointed while keeping their natural ‘live edge’ by carving them to fit each other. The planks were butted edge to edge to find the high points, these were marked and removed, and the process repeated until the planks fitted edge to edge as closely as possible.
Edge-jointing the planks this way rather than reducing them down to perfectly straight edges before jointing them, meant that as much width of the plank as possible could be retained, which was necessary as the planks were already narrow and close to the needed width of the finished window. This method also reduces wastage, and producing interesting curved and organic joins.
The planks were held together with wooden ledges, let it into recesses in the planks. The shape of the hand carved ledges was marked out with charcoal before being cut with a chisel to produce a nice close fit which held together with friction.
This friction fit would not last unfortunately, as the planks were still green and would shrink slightly as they dried. Holes were drilled through the planks and ledges and the window was lashed together. Again, this is inspired by Iron Age and Saxon ship technologies, with lashed and sewn planking.
Lashing the window also allows refitting of the window later with wooden pegs, once the planks are fully dry, so that the edge joins can be fitted very tightly with no gaps.
The window has simple hinges of tarred flaxen cord. The window can be tied shut from the inside with cordage attached to the cleats on the back of the planks.
With thanks to:
Hector Cole, Blacksmith, for forging the Saxon T-shaped Axe.
Grzegorz Kulig, Silversmith, for making the pattern-welded knife.
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