Covid: Wiltshire students build Celtic roundhouse in lockdown

Two "bored" students have made the most of lockdown by constructing a Celtic roundhouse.

Thalia Nitz, from Westbury in Wiltshire, and her boyfriend Finn Stilenan built it in his parents' garden near Dorchester, Dorset.

The dwelling took them two and a half weeks in the summer from start to finish, working eleven hours most days.

The couple spent just the one night in the roundhouse, lighting a fire outside, but said it was very cold.

Mr Stilenan, an archaeology student, said: "I normally do excavations through the summer so I had a lot of time on my hands. We made it up as we went along, it was quite spontaneous."

They measured out the space using string and then spent three days digging holes for posts.

Branches were used for the walls and then the pair dug a big pit and filled it with clay-like substance to smear all over the walls.

"I think they [his parents] thought we were a bit mad, especially when we were making the daub for the walls in this pit full of mud and horse manure, " said Ms Nitz.

"We're planning on building a Saxon Grubenhaus [pit house] next, going archaeologically forward in time, and ending up with a Roman villa," she added.

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