Sunken Featured Building

A ‘Sunken Featured Building’ (SFB), sometimes referred to as a Grubenhaus. These structures are characteristic of the Early-Middle Saxon period In Britain. They generally consist of a rectangular pit, with two post holes for supporting a ridge-roof, and sometimes others around the edges. They are likely to have been used for storage and as working-sheds.

Likely stages of construction:

1) Turves removed from pit area and laid as base of surrounding walls 2) Pit dug and earth piled around edges 3) Earth formed into walls, and shored-up on both sides 4) Ridge posts and beam set up 5) Main rafters set up 6) End wall plates laid 7) Framing of end walls 8) Well-fitting door inserted 9) Rafters set-up 10) cross-pieces fixed to hold thatch 11) Roof thatched, and end walls daubed. Interior cracks sealed with clay

A key point about building such a structure, which seems to be almost always overlooked, is that when you dig out a pit, there is a large amount of earth to be disposed of. To me it makes most sense for this to have been used to extend the sides of the pit, by piling the earth into dwarf walls. These could be shored up with light wattle-work, or a few stakes and old bits of timber; this sort of make-shift revetting would probably leave no mark on the archaeological record, at least around the outside of the dwarf-walls. This would raise the

sides of the storage pit and make it even better insulated. With a thatched roof, such a structure would have a very constant, low temperature. Naturally, the first thing to come out a pit when it is dug is the turf: this would make an excellent base for these earth walls.

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