Quiet Earth, a Straw Bale Retreat in the Beautiful Welsh
Hills.
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Rachel lived off-grid in a shed in her woodland in Wales, carrying water from a local
spring, using candlelight, a gas stove and a compost loo. She
loved it, but the shed was small, so she built a straw bale
extension onto it with the help of some friends. From this humble
start she has built what has become an iconic home winning the
2009
Grand Designs eco-house award. |
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Rachel gives a tour of the house.
Click the video button above
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Rachel's home is full of curves, soft colours and
filtered light as the sunlight weaves its way through the woodland
trees. Take a tour of the house with Rachel in the short
video.
Rachel holds workshops at her home throughout the year. She has
held events with well known natural builders like Barbara Jones of
Straw Works, Simon
Dale and
Tony Wrench. |
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Rachel's straw bale home in Pembrokeshire, Wales has no timber
frame. The structure is made from straw bales alone pegged with
hazel sticks. Her home was the first two storey load bearing straw
bale house in the UK. The home stands on a hill up a narrow path
above the 12th century
St Dogmaels Abbey with a view over the estuary once a lookout
spot for pirates.
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The partition wall
behind Rachel's wood burning stove stands on blue bottles (above)
where, in the winter, sunlight shines through them lighting up the
room. With such a narrow path through Rachel's woodland the
best way to bring materials to the site was by mule. Monty (below
left) is Susanna Powell's shire mule. Monty needed a little
encouragement to haul the heavy oak logs up the hill so Susanna
rigged up a carrot that dangled in front of Monty's nose which was
given to Monty as a reward at the top of the hill. |
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