The Coorie Witches’ Hut of Scotland

Mud mama Kim Fraser has been at it again! Kim’s magical space in Moray is turning into a fairytale empire. There’s a straw bale hideaway pulled straight out of the Shire, Baba Yaga’s hen coop, and now this fabulously funky little coorie hut. What’s “coorie”, you may well ask? The answer to that apparently takes an entire book to explain, so I’ll leave you to do the reading. But for the purposes of this article, the coorie hut is a feel-good place to snuggle up warm.

The coorie hut in all her glory.

It will indeed feel good too, because the whole thing has been made with loving hands, local materials, and my two best buddies: good old mud and lime.
 
“She’s the result of using leftover materials to make something practical and beautiful!” explains Kim.
 
I love many things about this little hut, but most of all I love that it has developed completely organically with plenty of idea changes. This is what always should happen in a build. The idea that an architect creates an exact plan and your poor house is bolted to it like a prisoner throughout the build, is a very modern situation.
 
So, how was this quirky little beauty built? Let’s take it from the bottom!

Kim and her Coorie.

1. Footings and stem wall
Now, this is a tiny structure, not a two-storey home, so there was no need to go overboard with the footings in this case. “The base was made with limecrete and stones found on site,” says Kim. This means the footings and the stem wall are all in one. All mud buildings need a stone (or similar) stem wall to protect them from damp and big rainfalls.
 
Just for the record, for most larger mud buildings you want gravel footings. It’s simply the easiest, most effective, and incidentally the cheapest way of going about it. Ditch the concrete pad idea. Just forget about that whole thing. That’s another kind of construction which isn’t beneficial for mud buildings.

Stone stem wall at the bottom.

2. Willow wigwam and mud daub
Next a framework was built using willow. This is a slightly different take on wattling. Basically you can create all kinds of mud (or indeed lime) structures using a wooden framework of some kind.
 
“She evolved from a willow wigwam to her current form using straw dipped in clay slip for the base layer then an earth daub with lots of straw to retain some warmth.”

The willow wigwam.

4. Roof
At this point Kim still wanted her coorie hut to be a dome without a roof. I’m not going to lie; I raised my eyebrow at that. You can read all about why here. Nevertheless I was curious because heck, if anyone could make a mud dome work in Scotland, it would be Kim. However, eventually she decided to stick a roof on as a canopy.
 
“Our Workaway volunteers helped with the process and built the wooden roof splitting old logs left from another build. One side is thatched using fireweed, the other side is covered in shingles made from old leftover wood.”
 
So you see? There’s no reason everything has to be uniform. Kim used whatever resources she had to hand, and actually this two-part roof is one of my favourite features.

The roof awaiting its shingles.

5. Painting and decorating
The coorie hut was painted with lime wash and stained with natural pigment, which is a clever way of getting a deeper colour onto lime wash. Later this year, once the threat of frost had receded in late May (May? Good Lord!) Kim laid a limecrete floor with the help of a volunteer called Georgie. But it’s far from over. “The Coorie has taken on a life of its own, and continues to evolve!” said Kim. More clay plaster is being made as I write, so hopefully there’ll be an update on this later on.

Limecrete going down on the floor.

n Why the Coorie Witches’ Hut is so inspiring.
Finally, there’s one other major thing I love about this build, and that is that Kim et al. have taken perfectionism, hacked it into roughly hewn hunks, and thrown them on the coorie fire. The last anyone saw of them was in smoke form leaving the chimney. Perfectionism is a curse many of us are burdened with (ahem). It can (and routinely does) completely scupper a build, stopping anything from manifesting, or slowing it to the point everyone loses heart. This little woven hut is going to be very inspiring because it is a wonderful, happy, and lovely example that you don’t have to (or even want to) have everything machine-perfect when you build with mud.
 
In natural building you can play, experiment, change your mind ten times, try new techniques that no one has heard of, have a rough edge or two (or even make a feature of them), ditch uniformity, and create a beautiful organic space that people are dying to sit inside.

You could actually stay at Kim’s and see the Coorie Witches’ Hut for yourself. Book a place at the award-winning and gorgeous Hideaway Under the Stars. It is absolutely no surprise to me that Kim’s place has a flawless five-star review record on Airbnb, as I stayed at hers once myself:)
 
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