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What Was a Grubenhaus? The Saxon Peasant's Underground Shelter You've Never Heard Of

Medieval Wisdom

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The Grubenhaus is one of the most common buildings in Anglo-Saxon England, and almost nobody today knows it existed. Between the fifth and seventh centuries, Anglo-Saxon settlers built thousands of these semi-subterranean structures across Britain. Archaeologists at Mucking in Essex alone uncovered over two hundred. The Roman historian Tacitus described the design as early as ninety-eight AD. In this video, we examine the archaeological evidence, the construction process, the thermal engineering principles, and why this simple building outperformed modern shelters that cost tens of thousands of dollars. We also explore the ongoing debate about suspended floors, the surprising connection to textile production, and the reason we stopped building them.

Sources:

Tacitus, Germania, Chapter 16 (c. 98 AD) — description of Germanic sunken buildings
Jess Tipper, The Grubenhaus in Anglo-Saxon England: An Analysis and Interpretation of the Evidence from a Most Distinctive Building Type (2004)
Helena Hamerow, Excavations at Mucking: Volume 2: The Anglo-Saxon Settlement (English Heritage/Oxford)
Stanley West, West Stow: The Anglo-Saxon Village (East Anglian Archaeology Report 24, 1985)
West Stow Anglo-Saxon Village Trust — experimental reconstruction data (1974–present)
Jarrow Hall experimental archaeology — Grubenhaus reconstruction based on New Bewick excavation (Colm O'Brien, 1980s)
Millennia Experimental Archaeology Project — Grubenhaus construction time estimates (Chalton, Hants evidence)
Geothermal Exchange Organization — ground temperature data

medieval architecture, Anglo-Saxon history, earth-sheltered building

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00:00 Start
THE WRITTEN RECORD — TACITUS: 01:22
WHAT A GRUBENHAUS ACTUALLY LOOKED LIKE: 02:48
THE GREAT FLOOR DEBATE: 04:41
NOT JUST HOUSES — THE WEAVING THEORY: 06:12
THE THERMAL ENGINEERING: 07:52
HOW TO BUILD ONE — THE PROCESS: 09:41
THE MODERN COMPARISON: 12:27
THE SETTLEMENT PATTERN: 13:37
WHY DID WE STOP BUILDING THEM?: 15:55
WHAT THIS MEANS TODAY: 17:50

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20 Comments

@AnDIYBuild 7 months ago

A Grubenhaus was a simple sunken-floor hut used by Saxon peasants, often built partially underground for warmth and protection. Such a fascinating piece of early medieval history!

@Fetherko 7 months ago

Ukrainian homesteaders in Alberta and Saskatchewan were building homes like this when they arrived. They survived in a cold climate.

@Jesse-w6f 7 months ago

I build a sunken structure when I need to live close to my livestock in the field during winter. I put a suspended floor in it made from flag stones placed on blocks and covered with another earthen floor later. In one corner I dig a deeper, square cold well and build a tall rocket type stove in it which exhausts under the floor through one interior side of the cold well and back out of the floor from the other interior side of the cold well. The stove pipe then runs right by the stove to heat up and force a draw through the system. I stretch a simple canvas over it and fold the ends shut almost exactly like the roofs on the first structures in this video. It's approximately 4'x8' of floor space and it's only used for sleeping in cold weather. The floor is 2' below grade with nearly another foot of air below it where the fire's hot exhaust stratifies and heats the floor. At 18°F outside temps the inside is close to 36°F with no fire and a cold floor. At 40°F outside the internal temp is close to 50°F with no fire and a cold floor. It takes two small fires burning for several hours using approximately four pounds of wood each to make the floor noticeably warmer and two much smaller shorter fires each day burning approximately 1.5 pounds of wood each to maintain it after that. The shelter will stay very liveable with nothing more than the canvas over it under these circumstances. I've never gone below about 15°F outside temperatures with this setup, but a true roof that was insulated would easily let someone be comfortable down to -40°F, or so I suspect.

@Tony-PanTone 7 months ago

The Grubenhaus is where MacGruber lives!

@LynetteMcGrath 7 months ago

Anyone who has watched Time Team is familiar with these houses - as they like to call them 'grub huts'.

@American-mutt-livin 2 weeks ago

Keeps you warm but also helps store food? I thought underground stayed more cool

@Mommapunkin 7 months ago

It's basically a berm home..

@A.Mardle 7 months ago

Grubenhaus suggest an adaptation to a violent and unstable world. When an enemy approaches you take your livestock and portable goods and flee to the forest. The enemy burns your village and moves on, and you return when it's safe and quickly rebuild your dwellings with locally sourced materials.

@geoffcartertheoreticalstru6484 7 months ago

OK: I was involved - I concluded these are Gateways - with a cattle grid !

@pattidrier9593 7 months ago

I grew up in an old farmhouse in Michigan USA. House was built in the mid 1800’s. We had a basement, originally dirt floor that had been the storage for food stored for winter months. My grandparents moved in about 1898. They lived like the 1800’s. Dad talked about the basement being wooden barrels and ceramic crocks with just a narrow path in between. They kept eggs in barrels , pickles and sauerkraut in crocks. Many years later it had
a concrete floor and. A Small room with cupboards and shelves for our canned goods. Parents still grew or bought enough potatoes for the winter and stored them in that small room. The basement was always much cooler in the summer. But it was also humid.

@Alpinelarix 7 months ago

Where I come from, just about everybody has a basement. It's lovely cool in summertime...

@PracticalPreparedness-n4u 7 months ago

On the TV show Alone a pit shelter with a sloped roof has done extremely well on a couple seasons

@WereMask 7 months ago

Some half sunken turf builds are easier to create and offer just as much thermal protection.

@Evelyn_Minnesota 6 months ago

I've been in a self-built earth-berm home just like these in the Sonoran Desert just west of Tucson, Arizona. A woman that I met built it and lived there. It's ideal for the harsh temperature regime there -- above 100 degrees F. during the day, (sometimes 112 degrees F. and even hotter), and in winter, shivering cold. She had made it very pleasant and cozy inside. The temps inside remained consistently pleasant and stable. A fabulous solution to a life-or-death housing problem!

@vintagelady1 7 months ago

I would have to doubt that the interiors of these structures were used for workshops or cooking due to a complete lack of lighting. One thing that is vastly different in the way we live now & that may well have caused some of the decline of these structures is that today, we do our living, our tasks , spend our time indoors. These places were meant for shelter, storage, sleeping, but most of the daylight hours would have been spent outside, working in fields, hunting, herding, cooking, trading, talking with friends & neighbors. I cannot imagine how weaving could have been done indoors in an almost completely dark house; I think it would be most likely that the looms would have moved outside where food ws cooked, children played, friends gossiped---then moved back indoors at night, at least in good weather.
A most interesting & well-made video, scolarly & informative, with relevant illustrations & no annoying music---maybe a little bit too enchanted with the grubenhaus technology, but well worth my time---thank-you!

@renar11d11 7 months ago

My grandfather built a sod house in Montana. It is like these buildings, but sod roof instead of thatch. It is still there.

@MichaelKelley-f7z 7 months ago

The way the wooden plank platform is done in Japanese houses as well as Native American longhouses uses a universal primitive house principle. They are constructed about table height (30") on eithrer side of a dirt floor aisle leading to the entrance, so as to be used barefoot for living and bed space. This keeps it out of the "stratified zone", the area of a room which remains filled with cold air even when the room is heated by fire or body heat. Naturally, the area underneath is ideal for food storage, as it remains at close to ground temperature. And it allows traffic in and out of the shelter to be dome on the dirt floor alone, leaving the platforms clean.