Cob: building codes

[Charmaine R Taylor]

Louis said:

People on this list have said in the past, that the cob houses that have

survived  in England, tend to have massively thick walls, from 3-6 feet
thick?  No one knows, how many other cob houses have just crumbled away
over the centuries.
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I just read somewhere that most of the cob (peasant labor) houses were
knocked down by the thousnads on properties in the late 1700s when the
idea of "park" was the rage in England.  Every estate wanted to have a
private park with animals roaming, for hunting, and lying about, those
upper class wastrels!  So they pushed the poor folk into town, and
simply  got rid of tons of dwellings, putting many on the road as
vagabonds.

Might have been on one of thse Crown & King PBS programs where prince
was going about explaining history..but it was recent information. I
remember thinking how we'll never know how long they could have lasted,
of course architect /writer Hugh Braun in the 1940's described many
places as simple hovels, merely poles lashed together and mudded over
for the season...no permission to build better by the landlords.

Charmaine