CORRESPONDENCE.

PISS DE TERRE COTTAGE-BUILDING.

[To THE EDITOR or-THE " SPECTAT0112] SI11,—Readers of the Spectator who have followed the first stages of the Ping Renaissance will be interested by the report that I have received from the architect in charge of my experiment—the building of a small-holder's house and steading at Newlands Corner.—I am, Sir, &c., 3. ST. Los STRACHEY. Newlands Corner, Merrow Downs, Guildford.

" The whole of the. Pig walling has now been completed° without a hitch of any sort, and to my entire satisfaction. True, the weather has been in our favour, and the walls have already dried out to the likeness of a smooth,, close-grained sandstone into which a nail can only be driven with difficulty.

The earth for the walls has been dug from within and immediately around the building. so that there has been no carting whatever and practically no wheeling.

A man and a boy—an invalided-out R.A.M.C. sergeant and his son—have done the whole of the walling with occasional help in the shifting and setting of the shuttering. The whole work of excavating and building took just under a month400 man-hours, to be exact, both men receiving a shilling an, hour as unskilled labourers.

The whole of the outer walls of a cottage containing livingroom, parlour, three bedrooms, scullery, bathroom, larder, pram and cycle space, coalhole and E.C. have thus been completed for £20 (twenty pounds)--that is, at considerably, less than one-tenth the cost of the same amount of walling :n brickwork.

All the rooms are of the areas laid down by the Board of Agriculture as desirable for the houses of small-holders, and their cubic content is considerably in excess of the standard. A matter of a pound or two ought strictly to be allowed for the use and wear of the shuttering, which is now being despatched elsewhere for the erection of a Pis4 Village Hall.

A bricklayer has been in attendance for the laying of the foundations (6 inches of concrete, 3 feet wide, with three. courses of brickwork above it—two courses under the elate damp-course and one above), the building of the chimney-. stacks, and the laying of the earth-blocks in the partition walls. These blocks, rammed in moulds 18 inches by 9 inches by 9 inches, have been made on the site and work out at about. Etd. each. They are equal in bulk to twelve ordinary bricks. which with haulage to the site and the extra labour in laying would have cost a great deal more.

The corner-pier to the veranda has been constructed in blocks of rammed chalk; but thongh an admirable piece of masonry, it has not proved an economical expedient owing to the cost of raising, transporting. and pulverizing the chalk. The roofing-in has unfortunately been delayed by the difficulty of procuring a carpenter, but the walls are adequately protected, pending his coming, by strips of roofing-felt supported en cross sticks and weighted down with bricks and flints.

Such flints as we required for concrete and path-making were screened from the Pise earth—but otherwise the sieve was little used.

Had we been a little more particular in this respect, I have no doubt but that we might have papered to the Pise walls direct, without any plastering at all.

As it is, the surface of the walls is dead smooth over the greater part—but here and there there are small pock-marks due to the presence of stones next the shuttering.

For plastering, such small irregularities are of course an advantage as providing a good key.

The pitch and gravel damp-course that you suggested has been tried on one section of the boundary wall, and looks like being effective, though I am not yet convinced of its economy as against tarred-felt.

As a result of our experience with this trial building, I am baring various mechanical appliances constructed or adapted that will, I believe, still further reduce the cost of Pise building, add to its strength and density, and greatly increase

the rate of construction. CLOUGH WILLIAMS-ELLIS.

August 25th, 1919."