The tradition of the ‘Tŷ Unnos’ (literally ‘one night house’ in English) is one that goes back centuries in Wales. It was a particularly common phenomenon in upland areas in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, the great period of land enclosure that left many rural poor without homes and access to grazing. A solution to the population pressure was the ‘Tŷ Unnos’ built on the common land that nobody else wanted (usually roadside or upland). The tradition was that if you erected a house between dusk and dawn, had smoke rising from the chimney by dawn, and if nobody challenged your right to be there for a year, then the land around the cottage became your own.

By now the originals have all long since disappeared, but it does explain why we see so many isolated cottages dotted across the upland areas of much of North and West Wales, many of them rebuilds of former one-night houses.

However, one rural community in West Wales got together in an attempt to revive the old tradition, and to build a ‘Tŷ Unnos’ according to the old custom - in just one night.

The man behind the venture was surveyor Dorian Bowen from Trelech a’r Betws in Carmarthenshire. What fuelled his interest in the history of the ‘tŷ unnos’ was a picture of a cottage in Porth Rhyd near Pontrhydfendigaid. He was determined to re-create that cottage. So he laid down the gauntlet to family and friends and succeeded in bringing 60 people together to take on the challenge.

Dorian already had experience of renovating a historic house as he had transformed a ruin into a comfortable home. It was on the land surrounding this home that he intended to build the tŷ unnos.

As Dorian recalls, forward-planning was vital for the project. “We were organised, so that the important work of collecting all the materials from the surrounding land had been done beforehand – oak for the roof structure, turf clods for the walls, hazel for the wickerwork chimney, and gorse and straw for the thatched roof. But there was still a lot to do on the night.”

The house-building team was keen to get started and looking forward to their challenge, but no-one had foreseen the terrible weather, since it was only September. Unfortunately, what they faced was the tail end of Hurricane Gordon which had created havoc in other parts of the world before making its way to Wales.

“It was quite scary,” explains series co-presenter, Aled Samuel. “The wind was roaring and the rain pouring down, but everyone was determined to keep on going through the night."

Did Dorian and his gang succeed in building the house, with smoke rising from the chimney by daybreak – or did Hurricane Gordon have the last laugh?

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