House of one night - an original ancient tradition and its results (9 photos)

Near the village of Llanysefn in Pembrokeshire, southwest Wales, stands a small stone cottage. Legend has it that it was built in a single night, in the tradition of tŷ unnos, meaning "one night house". According to this centuries-old tradition, anyone who could erect a dwelling on common land between dusk and dawn could lay claim to the land and the house.





Variations of the tradition called for a fire to be lit in the hearth and smoke to be coming out of the chimney by dawn. It was said that a squatter could also extend the area around a house to the distance he could throw an axe from the four corners of the house.



Although 'tŷ unnos' has no legal force, it was common throughout Wales and Britain during the 17th to 19th centuries. During this period, many landowners converted their estates into large private farms, forcing the eviction of those who lived and earned their living on the land. Pushed to the margins, many peasants took up the tradition of building houses under cover of darkness in the hope of outwitting their greedy landlords.





In many villages in Britain you can find houses that, according to local folklore, were built overnight. The original house was built from a mixture of clay, mud, turf and straw. Any other materials would have required more effort and time.



The process would begin with the squatter's family and friends collecting building materials and bringing them to the site, ready to begin work as soon as the sun sank below the horizon. Working all night, they would erect four simple walls and attach a thatched roof. Minor features like windows would be added later, but a door was essential to protect the entrance. Then, at dawn, a fire would be lit in the hearth, and the smoke coming out of the chimney would signal that the work was complete. And a new home was built.



Penrhos Cottage

After a family had established their rights to the land, the house was gradually rebuilt using more durable materials. So, although there are many cottages built according to the tŷ unnos tradition, no original examples survive.



Llynfadin Cottage

Penrhos Cottage in Pembrokeshire is an example of a tŷ unnos style house. This two-bedroom house served as a home for several generations of families before being abandoned. In the 1970s, it was bought by the local authority and turned into a museum. Llynfadin Cottage, built in 1762, is another example of this style of house. It has also been a museum since 1962. The last known version was built in 1882 in Flintshire by four brothers from Lancashire. A fictional account of their adventures appeared in Oliver Onion's 1914 novel Mushroom City.



The tradition of building a house for one night is not unique to Wales.

Similar customs and folklore exist in Ireland, Italy, France and Turkey. In eastern France, for example, it was believed that each person had the right to set aside a portion of the commune's land for the purpose of building a house between dusk and dawn. Younger members of poor families would sometimes spend the entire winter preparing the wooden structures for the house with family and friends, and then on a fine night when everything was ready, the family would gather in a vacant lot and with great skill erect the house, from the wooden threshold to the thatched roof.



A similar tradition exists in Turkey. In Istanbul, almost half the population lives in gecekondu – temporary dwellings that are hastily erected, usually in one night. In his book Shadow Cities, author Robert Neuwirth details how these squatters take advantage of a legal loophole that states that if construction begins after sunset and a squatter moves into a completed home before dawn the next day without alerting authorities, the authorities are prohibited from demolishing the building the following day. Instead, they must file a lawsuit, which increases the likelihood that the squatter will retain the right to reside.



Development in Ankara

The origins of this surprisingly common folklore are difficult to trace. There is a Welsh tribal law which states that every free man had the “right to cultivate several plots of land” when he married, and that a tay-unnos was built when a young man married. Similarly, old Norse laws stated that every man had the right to build himself a sceter (a dwelling on high ground for summer use) and to take land as far as he could throw his knife.

According to various scholars, this tradition may have its origins in ancient Germanic, Roman, Ottoman, or even Indo-European law. But no one really knows for sure where this ancient, subversive, yet effective theme came from.