Marram
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The build log

What has actually happened

Four entries in twelve months, which is the real rate. We would rather write nothing than write something.

  1. Eleven tonnes of riven Welsh slate stacked on bearers in the yard, against the boundary wall.

    12 Aug 2026

    The slate landed

    Eleven tonnes from Ffestiniog, stacked in the yard for a fortnight while the roofers finish the west pitch. It is a colder grey than the sample, which we prefer and did not plan.

  2. An unfinished room at Marram: bare lime plaster, a deep window, a step-ladder.

    30 Jul 2026

    Seven rooms plastered

    Lime, three coats, and each one needs a week between them, which is why this took the whole summer and why the last four are next spring's problem.

  3. The long oak table under the estuary window in a bare lime-plastered room.

    18 Jun 2026

    The kitchen is commissioned

    Signed with a workshop in Machynlleth. Oak, and one long run rather than an island, because the room is eleven feet wide and an island would be a wall.

  4. Dry marram grass on the dune, bending in the wind.

    2 May 2026

    We had the survey back on the dune

    The marram is holding and the channel has moved nine metres east since the 2019 chart. Neither is a problem for the building. Both change the walk to the water.

Five material samples laid out on dark slate and photographed from above: riven slate, oiled oak, folded oatmeal wool, a lime plaster tile, and a polished brass plate.

The board

Five materials, and where each one came from

Five samples went to the joiner in March. Every colour on this site is one of them measured, so the swatch and the plate cannot disagree.

Riven slate
Ffestiniog, 34 miles
DS-04
Oiled oak
Powys, air-dried four years
OO-12
Oatmeal wool
Trefriw mill
OW-07
Lime plaster
Mixed on site
LP-01
Polished brass
Birmingham, unlacquered
BP-09

Opening May 2027

Nothing to book. A list to be on.

Five emails over the next year, and then an invitation forty-eight hours before anybody else gets one.

1,204 ahead of you · 7 of 11 rooms plastered