| The Hazelnut |
History
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This form of construction continued in Britain until as recently as the early 19th Century, though it had been in decline for 150 years as the Industrial Revolution, which allowed the mass production of cheap brick and iron, also brought with it a change in culture that judged wattle-and-daub a fire risk, less permanent than brick and old-fashioned.
In Ireland wattle-and-daub disappeared by the 16th Century due to the clear-felling of trees in this period, initially by newly 'planted' landowners and merchants. Later when the woodlands were already gone or depleted to unsustainable levels peasants, desperate for fuel and lumbar, stripped whatever trees were left. Not only wattle-and-daub but the culture of a timber-based economy disappeared from this island. In time it even came to be seen as something foreign. |
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