
(
pl.: ;
English: 'one-night house', also ) is an old
Welsh tradition that has parallels in other folk traditions in other areas of the British Isles. It was believed by some that if a person could build a house on
common land
Common land is collective land (sometimes only open to those whose nation governs the land) in which all persons have certain common rights, such as to allow their livestock to graze upon it, to collect wood, or to cut turf for fuel.
A person ...
in one night, the land then belonged to them as a
freehold. There are other variations on this tradition, for example that the test was to have a fire burning in the hearth by the following morning and the
squatter
Squatting is the action of occupying an abandoned or unoccupied area of land or a building (usually residential) that the squatter does not Land ownership and tenure, own, rent or otherwise have lawful permission to use. The United Nations estima ...
could then extend the land around by the distance they could throw an axe from the four corners of the house.
Origins
From a period spanning the 17th to the beginning of the 19th centuries, the expansion of the Welsh population combined with poverty brought about a series of incidents of
squatting on isolated patches of land in the most rural parts of Wales. The practice arose because of the pressure of the lack of land due to the
land enclosures of the period, and the
taxation
A tax is a mandatory financial charge or levy imposed on an individual or legal person, legal entity by a governmental organization to support government spending and public expenditures collectively or to Pigouvian tax, regulate and reduce nega ...
laws established by landowners. Family units paid taxes based on the land they inhabited, so families with adult and married children faced paying additional taxes on a second home, even if it was on the same land.
Legal status

The has no status in English
common law
Common law (also known as judicial precedent, judge-made law, or case law) is the body of law primarily developed through judicial decisions rather than statutes. Although common law may incorporate certain statutes, it is largely based on prece ...
(the legal code which applied to
England and Wales
England and Wales () is one of the Law of the United Kingdom#Legal jurisdictions, three legal jurisdictions of the United Kingdom. It covers the constituent countries England and Wales and was formed by the Laws in Wales Acts 1535 and 1542. Th ...
in this period), although there is some tradition of legal discussion about the point at which land occupied by squatters without title may be regarded as a legitimate possession. This legendary belief may bear some relation to genuine folk customs and actual practices by squatters encroaching on common or waste land. The tradition may have provided squatters with a sense that their actions enjoyed some legitimacy conferred by an older code of laws more in tune with values of social justice than the supposed "
Norman yoke". The customary practice has no foundation in the Common Law regarding land usage as it applies in England and Wales.
Many localities in Wales and England have a house or houses which may be identified as a one night house in local
folklore
Folklore is the body of expressive culture shared by a particular group of people, culture or subculture. This includes oral traditions such as Narrative, tales, myths, legends, proverbs, Poetry, poems, jokes, and other oral traditions. This also ...
. These may in fact be properties that were originally built by squatters and may be constructed in a vernacular building tradition using locally available materials. The Ugly House () is a celebrated example in
Snowdonia
Snowdonia, or Eryri (), is a mountainous region and National parks of the United Kingdom, national park in North Wales. It contains all 15 mountains in Wales Welsh 3000s, over 3000 feet high, including the country's highest, Snowdon (), which i ...
.
Many of these legends seem to be passed on in ignorance of the broader tradition of the one night house and may feature picturesque details based on variants of the traditions noted above. These legends generally take the form of a prominent member of local society proposing a wager with a landless family that members who could raise a house in a night and a day could keep the property. Some versions of these legends may emphasise that the family may cheat and win out over the complacent authority figure by building a very small hut or by simply building a hearth and chimney.
A good general account of one night house traditions is provided in the book ''Cotters and Squatters'', by the British anarchist and writer on housing issues,
Colin Ward. Ward considers the one night house tradition in the context of squatting and other informal systems of occupying and using land and relates accounts from England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales, which demonstrate clear parallels in different folk traditions. He observes that similar traditions exist in Turkey, France, and North and South America.
Architectural development
Very little is known in detail about the building of these structures, their numbers or inhabitants, and no accurate representations survive. Most were originally made of
turf
Sod is the upper layer of turf that is harvested for transplanting. Turf consists of a variable thickness of a soil medium that supports a community of turfgrasses.
In British and Australian English, sod is more commonly known as ''turf'', ...
and
soil
Soil, also commonly referred to as earth, is a mixture of organic matter, minerals, gases, water, and organisms that together support the life of plants and soil organisms. Some scientific definitions distinguish dirt from ''soil'' by re ...
, with a roughly
thatched roof. Once established, the walls were often replaced with local materials, including clay and stone. An experimental construction in
Carmarthenshire
Carmarthenshire (; or informally ') is a Principal areas of Wales, county in the South West Wales, south-west of Wales. The three largest towns are Llanelli, Carmarthen and Ammanford. Carmarthen is the county town and administrative centre. ...
in 2006 demonstrated that a rudimentary structure could be assembled quickly. The squatters may not have depended exclusively on agriculture and in some areas may have worked in quarries and mines. This development led to dispersed settlement patterns seen in the Welsh landscape today. Materials from early stages of construction may have been replaced by higher quality timber and
slate
Slate is a fine-grained, foliated, homogeneous, metamorphic rock derived from an original shale-type sedimentary rock composed of clay or volcanic ash through low-grade, regional metamorphism. It is the finest-grained foliated metamorphic ro ...
s, available via the new railways. Single-storey cottages were modified by raising the roofs and enlarging the windows.
The most recent known was built in 1882 by four brothers in
Flintshire
Flintshire () is a county in the north-east of Wales. It borders the Irish Sea to the north, the Dee Estuary to the north-east, the English county of Cheshire to the east, Wrexham County Borough to the south, and Denbighshire to the west. ...
.
Oliver Onions fictionalized the story in his 1914 novel ''Mushroom Town''.
As a name for modular housing
The concept has been used as an inspiration for low-cost modular housing systems. The Welsh woodland
charity
Charity may refer to:
Common meanings
* Charitable organization or charity, a non-profit organization whose primary objectives are philanthropy and social well-being of persons
* Charity (practice), the practice of being benevolent, giving and sha ...
used as a name for a house design using local materials.
In 2009, they were invited to show the design in
Washington, D.C., as part of the 2009
Smithsonian Folklife Festival, which showcased Wales.
See also
*
*
Shanty town
A shanty town, squatter area, squatter settlement, or squatter camp is a settlement of improvised buildings known as shanties or shacks, typically made of materials such as mud and wood, or from cheap building materials such as corrugated iron s ...
*
Bibliography
*Iorwerth C. Peate, ''The Welsh House'' (Brython Press, Liverpool, 1946)
*Colin Ward, ''Cotters and Squatters - Housing's Hidden History'' (Five Leaves Publications, Nottingham, 2002)
*Eurwyn Wiliam, ''Hand Made Homes: dwellings of the rural poor in Wales'' (National Museum of Wales, 1988)
*Eurwyn Wiliam, ''The Welsh Cottage'' (Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Wales, 2010)
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ty Unnos
Welsh law
History of Wales
Legal history of Wales
Architecture in Wales
Houses in Wales
House styles
House types in the United Kingdom
Agricultural buildings
Agriculture in Wales
Huts
Squatting in the United Kingdom