Byre-dwelling

Examples of such Iron Age longhouses were first excavated in large numbers on the warft of Feddersen Wierde near the German North Sea coastal town of Cuxhaven.

This type of dwelling is distributed across the North German Plain from the Netherlands to the Bay of Gdansk (Danzig) and bounded in the south by the Central Uplands.

Likewise the Haubarg in North Frisia is a recent development of the Early Modern Period from the East Frisian Gulfhaus.

It is a solid, stone building, usually with a wooden core, which comprises domestic and working areas, one behind the other, under a single, broad saddle roof.

At the front of the ground floor storey is the vestibule (Sulèr, pietan) leading to the living quarters: the parlour (Stube), kitchen (Küche), larder (Vorratskammer) and, at the back, the barn (Scheune) for the hay.

While the division of the rooms and the position of the windows and oriels (with their view of the well) were based mainly on practical considerations, the facades of Engadine houses were often richly decorated with murals and sgraffiti.

In England too, there was a very similar type of dwelling, of which remains survive in the southwest, for example in the longhouse variants of Dartmoor, in Cornwall or in Wales.