Earth is one of the oldest, most widely used construction materials on the planet. When used unfired, it is also one of the most sustainable as the only energy needed to build with it consists of digging it out of the ground and placing it to build a wall.

The main area for earth buildings in the UK is the South-west, where the material is known as cob, a mixture of subsoil and straw. There are examples of cob buildings over 500 years old.

It was widely used in parts of the region but was displaced by more modern materials during the Victorian era, to the extent that virtually no new buildings were constructed in cob from the First World War until relatively recently. Earth was used in East Anglia, too, in the form of rectangular earth and straw blocks.

Recently some people have embraced cob, most notably a builder called Kevin McCabe whose 1,250m² cob mansion in Ottery St Mary is thought to be the largest ever built in the UK.

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