This would be good as a long-term survival shelter.

Does anyone know which museum this is? The one at The Ancient Technology Centre is quite different from this.

what about flooding?

Build a small dam around the house.

I'm thinking these houses would have been thatched. To split shakes, you need a good way to crosscut your blocks, and saws were very expensive then, unless I'm missing a method other than sawing? These people were farmers too, so they'd have lots of straw for thatching, but you need straight wood of good diameter, of a rot resistant specie for shakes. I'd think those trees would be valued too much for other things than roofing.

haunted

Matt Moore at 1 min 20 he explains the shingles weren't sawn and were split using a specific tool well suited.. 🙂

No Free Will right at the beginning he said the roof was a decade old, he used chestnut wood which was long lasting as it contained tannin.

I'm sure the bolts were cut with a chainsaw, that's how we did it the little bit of shake splitting I've done. I don't begrudge that either. I just don't think Anglo-Saxons were sawing up logs to spit into roofing when they had straw laying around, for a lot less work.

Matt Moore I'm not sure what you mean. He distinctly said that these specific shingles were made using a froe and not made with a saw. Straw would probably have been easier and quicker to use if it was at hand, but thinking about it, it would be dependent on whether you have the resource of straw – it has to be grown and harvested, also it would be used for animal food through the winter months, wood from the forests would have been a more abundant and ready resource all the time.