Plans to replace Chiltern museum's 'Horrible Histories' roundhouse

An open-air museum is looking to build a new replica Iron Age roundhouse to replace its current one, which has featured in the BBC's Horrible Histories comedy series.

The Chiltern Open Air Museum in Chalfont St Giles, Buckinghamshire, said the new roundhouse would be historically accurate, including a floor made of "chalk and cheese" - an early form of concrete .

Learning manager for the museum, Jon Gibson, said the current roundhouse gave the 12,000 schoolchildren who visited every year "a real sense of what life was like" in ancient times.

About £10,500 has been raised so far for its replacement, with the attraction setting a £50,000 fundraising target.

The Horrible Histories franchise started out as a series of books and later became a popular CBBC show, enjoyed by children and adults for its dark humour and surreal parodies.

The existing roundhouse featured in the show in 2009 but the structure is now 30 years old and needs to be replaced, with the museum adding that roundhouses in the Iron Age were not built to last forever.

The museum is planning to base the new roundhouse on the most up-to-date archaeological research.

The new structure will have a roof made of cereal straw, similar to that seen in local Iron Age sites.

It will also have naturally curved timbers which will be set into the ground, and connected with wooden nails to make arches.

The walls will be made of hazel and brushwood wattle and daub, and will be painted with designs based on local pottery, metalwork and other Iron Age artefacts.

The "chalk and cheese" floor will also include cheese curds, known as casein, which when mixed with the chalk creates a natural reaction that sets hard.

Throughout construction, visitors will be able to watch the roundhouse take shape and learn about the materials, techniques and skills involved.

Gibson said schoolchildren were "always amazed at how dark it is inside" the current roundhouse, "and how warm the fire is".

"They go home slightly grubby, smelling of wood smoke, having had a fantastic day," he added.

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