Tŷ unnos: Homes made overnight using 17th Century 'squatters' rights

[editor]

This is a great story

If you think getting on the property ladder today is tough, spare a thought for early modern Welsh rural labourers.

The custom of tŷ unnos, which translates into English as house in one night, was a commonly-held folklore across Wales between the 17th and 19th centuries.

It held that, if a squatter could build a house on common land between dusk and dawn, then the occupier could lay claim to the legal freehold of the property.

One academic believes that, in a time when rising house prices in rural Wales are "causing difficulties" for young people hoping to remain in their home villages, there's "renewed interest in values like tŷ unnos".

Smoke had to be issuing from the chimney before sun-up and some regional variations, in particular in Denbighshire, maintained the builder could also claim all the land within the distance they could hurl an axe from each of the four corners of the house.

Tŷ unnos: Homes made using 17th Century 'squatters' rights'

The custom of tŷ unnos - house in one night - was a commonly-held folklore across Wales.

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[two sheds]

Not only Wales I thought - but yes good luck to them. Used to be all the rellies gathered round for the day

 

[Pickman's model]

yeh in some ways it sounds good. in others it doesn't - the diminishment of land held in common, for example.

 

[JimW]

You can see an enclosure on the hillside across from my folks' place in Gloucestershire called Dead Man's Acre as legend has it you could keep any land you enclosed in a day and this fellow failed in the attempt.

 

[two sheds]

Have a mate who bought a field well out of the way in back of Cornwall beyond, put a log-cabin type affair on there. Can't say I disagree with that.

The problem comes when he gets change-of-use permission to domestic and next person who buys it puts one or more executive homes on there