Sleeping in a Medieval Bushcraft Shelter: Storm Lanterns, Stone Circle Fire, Winter Camping

so so laughs you [Laughter] [Laughter] [Music] uh yep [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] so so so [Music] [Music] it's just before christmas at the moment the time of filming this few days before christmas and you join me here in our anglo-saxon pitt house or gruben house uh it's inspired by the anglo-saxons medieval sort of era with thatch roof it's got clay water and doorballs we sunk it down into a pit and yeah i'm just coming to spend the night here really uh today was i didn't arrive until just after lunchtime um so i only had a couple of hours light remaining because we don't get much daylight at this time of year so i set up the raised bed there was already a raised bed in here i dismantled one just to make a bit of room for the fire pit but i set up the race bed and i'm gonna sleep on um these are you this is you i believe so you bow you bow bed um but basically a bowel bed so it's raised up got some bowels on there and uh just gonna put my sleeping bag on top uh sorry i've got a pad and then sleeping bag on top and i'm not gonna blow up my it's an air mattress i'm not gonna blow it up i'm just gonna use it because it's so raised off the ground and i'm already in a warm shelter i'm just going to use that uh uninflated pad to stop the pokey sticks going through the sleeping bag and um yeah causing a bit of havoc there so that was the first test fire of the of the the medieval where sax nails i was really skeptical really worried because this thatch has been so dry it's over a year ago we put this thatch up and there's no rain that's ever come through here so the inner layer of this thatch is really really dry and the seed heads are still there so i was really quite skeptical as the sparks were flying up obviously when you first let the fire the sparks start flying up i was a little bit worried that they uh they would catch light but actually it's quite hard to it need a lot of sparks fairly constantly to get this thing up in flames and what happens is i don't know what the pitch of this roof what the angle is but the height is probably around maybe 15 feet um yeah i'd say 12 12 and 12 feet actually probably 12 feet on the ridge the top of the ridge pole and uh what happens is the smoke from when you're inside a building like this the smoke rises and it kind of sits in a layer just above your head well when you're sat down in this shelter it's just above your head and then what happens is as the sparks come up from the fire they're actually put out by the smoke the smoke smothers it it starves the sparks of oxygen so you'll see if you watch the sparks in a smoky environment this the smoke just puts them out so they wiggle up and then it puts them out and that's thankfully what's happening here um i've got to put some more wood on the fire in a minute but it's this the sparks are going up and the smoke the layer of smoke is just killing it off so yeah just enjoying a bit of uh fry up in terms of um it's kind of a stir fry without the noodles and rice really uh just a really quick dish because i knew i wanted to just test other things while i was here like the fire pit in the bed so it's just beef peppers onions a bit of spice and uh yeah simple dish and i'm happy to be here it's great to be here thank you guys for tuning in it's now about six o'clock at night and i'm just to relax here to be honest i've done kind of what i wanted to film i've got a few lanterns set up these are courtesy of the guys over at petromax the fewer hands i think they're baby special lanterns so essentially they're like a a hurricane lantern really like a storm lantern um they're absolutely awesome you just put a bit of paraffin i put paraffin in the uh the reservoir down on the bottom there you flip the glass open and you can light it how you want with the lighter i just use some matches and then you they're just good because you can adjust there's a little nozzle here you can adjust how much the wick comes out like that and obviously the more wick you get out the brighter the lamp but if you do it too much it just ends up smoking the glass and obviously you burn through your wick quicker so i like to i like to have a few just dim obviously i've got camera lighting things on but about halfway up the glass is how i like to have it some yeah just gives a bit more of a warm feeling to being in the uh in the saxon house so i whipped up a little seat which is basically from three sticks lashed together and this is a canvas seat cover it's just a piece of canvas with three kind of uh pockets where you can put the sticks and if you've lashed your done your lashing properly and you fold the sticks out you can make yourself a camera seat now this one's kind of like a bicycle saddle you can make the shape slightly different to how you want and i set it so that my knees are at kind of waist high so you want to cut these sticks so sorry you want to cut these sticks so that your knees are at right angle and they're not like up sloping down but yeah that's the uh the tier outdoors pack seat has really cool thing my friend tim makes for me i'll put a link in the description to these they fold up into nothing into a tiny little triangle and just a really useful very durable made of canvas it's just a really sort of durable small piece of kit that's ideal for little things like this where i'm sat on this raised bed now my legs are not at the right angle but when i'm eating i'd rather my legs were at right angle then i can sit on that i just need to seal up these gable ends at both ends of the shelter so they don't let any uh drafts come in and i'm tempted let me know guys but i'm tempted to put a window in there and a small window in there a it will help with airflow and b it will allow a lot more light in the day to film in here so it won't have to have a big um camera light all the time ah always almost almost went all the way so fire's pretty much gone up i'd rather it went out while i'm awake because i don't need it for heat it's still so warm i'm wearing wool layers and i've got a winter sleeping bag thermal pad which i can blow up if i want um but it's just glowing embers at the moment and i don't really need it for anything so i let it burn out then i'm in the safety of knowing that the roof's not going to catch fire and i'll start it up again in the morning yes it's kind of speedy overnighter i wanted to get this in before christmas it just makes sense to uh try and get one in for you guys as well to enjoy because i'm not a lot of you know a lot of you guys out there at the moment are in some form of lockdown you can't get out uh it's very restricting and i appreciate i'm very fortunate to be able to come out and do this uh you know do these things but yeah so this is almost to try and help those people out there as well who are living vicariously through this channel but yeah this this bird seems pretty comfortable oh yeah yeah it's nice it's more comfy than the uh the bed in the last video i made even though the mattress was blown up in that one it's just a little bit uneven well folks um i'm gonna save some battery but take my boots off and get changed you don't need to see that at the moment and uh yeah we'll get some food for the morning and some coffee and stuff which is what i built part of this fire pit for yeah i'll see you in the morning guys cheers [Laughter] so this laughs [Applause] so [Music] it can't be a bit of coffee in the morning it's not quite first first light it's not early doors but it's about nine o'clock had a bit of a line as you do when you've got night away from the little one and um yeah i just got the fire going quick made up a little pot hanger dead simple to make and uh just a i've got quite a low sort of hanging system at the moment pot hanging system so i'm gonna probably rebuild it down the line a little bit higher don't have it too high because the flames are just gonna rip up into the thatch but i'm still standing the roof is still on and you can see if you saw a shot earlier of the smoke permeating through the thatch and you can see how it breathes and it's a really clever material that they've been using for thousands of years in iron age britain on various you know anglo-saxon structures and celtic roundhouses and things like that and it's just an awesome material it's super waterproof and like i say you can see that it just lets that smoke seep through yeah of course it gets smoky in the in the house to begin with in the structure the shelter but once that flame starts going it burns off all the smoke and it goes and because you're lower down the smoke's kind of above you but really pleased with that i've got some food to cook up in a minute i'm just enjoying a nice coffee in the old wood cooker this a lot of people ask me about this one this is spalted beach so it's from the beech tree and spalted means that it's it's kind of partially broken down partially decomposing and rotting but it's not fully rotten it's just at the decomposition stage where you can see all these lines and that's that's not put in by the maker that is already in the wood although all that character if i zoom in a bit i mean look at that that's pretty awesome that is what happens to often if you bury it in the ground so this is made by my friend will canavan who is one of the most incredible woodworkers certainly i've ever known of he makes all sorts of things from like church pew chairs to to just awesome cuxers and bowls and everything and uh yeah so he made these i've had this for years he made this for me must have been a couple years ago now and he um he buries the wood he gets the beach and he buries it underground and lets it get to that spalting phase that decompositions phase where it gets all these lovely markings and then he carves the cooksa and then he gives it a bath in oil and food grades you know food safe oil some i think it's linseed oil actually and um so it kind of takes up all that oil and it comes up with this amazing effect um he's a great guy i'll pop a link to his stuff in the description and he's just about to start up a youtube channel as well so i'll pop a link to that but yeah i haven't showcased the cookzer in a while so the first night solo night in the saxon house was uh a success i enjoyed it um comfy bed can't can't deny the bed wasn't comfortable and there's just no uh cold breeze coming through here even with the gaps up there it if a breeze does come through it tends to come up and go straight to the other part of the house but it's up above my head and i was low down so yeah yeah enjoying it right the fire's gonna go out so i need to get it going again i can get some food on [Music] c [Applause] [Applause] [Applause] my that's the camera seat the three pockets you just fold one end the other end the other end folds up into a small little triangle goes down the back of my backpack getting cordage obviously i'm gonna leave that there because then i can just i should have kept the shape actually but i could just make my seat whatever i want you down the back there same with the birch bark well if you've watched this far you've made it to the end of the video so i appreciate you watching all the way through thank you for the views thank you for the support i don't know when i'm dropping this video probably just before christmas obviously some of you will be watching it afterwards but i might as also now have a very merry christmas and a very happy new year it's been a strange one 2020. i've hope hopefully i've helped some of you out along the way and obviously if you're feeling low and you're concerned about your mental health and things like that keep your head up stay strong try and stay positive drink lots of water and i hope to bring you some more awesome content in 2021 got some great series mini series planned and some bigger things as well it's been a it's been a great year on youtube for me again um i think i'm i think i'm coming up to potentially 2 million subscribers next year which is just mad so i got to say thanks guys really appreciate it um it's been an amazing journey i've learned lots of new skills i've learned a lot a lot about the history of britain iron age britain vikings celts saxons it's uh yeah it's been unbelievable so thank you so much for your support thank you for watching the videos don't forget to check out my dad's youtube channel ta fishing he helps build this with me we must have spent i think 10 days building this uh we put a lot of effort into it and at his age that's no mean feat so go and check his channel out ta fishing hit the subscribe button and i will catch you guys in the next episode see you soon you

Channel: TA Outdoors

Views: 962,667

Keywords: bushcraft, bushcraft shelter, camping, winter camping, survival, sleeping, medieval house, medieval bushcraft shelter, storm, stone fire pit, raised bed, furniture, sleeping in a medieval bushcraft shelter, bushcraft camp, solo overnight, solo, alone in the woods, alone in the wild, wilderness, off grid, off grid cabin, log cabin, off grid log cabin, log cabin in winter, viking house, saxon house, roundhouse, overnight, solo bushcraft, solo winter camp, ta outdoors, taoutdoors, tools

Id: VEp7PTJbiGc

Length: 35min 33sec (2133 seconds)

Published: Thu Dec 24 2020