FILM REVIEWS

The 1956 film “The Ten Commandments”starred Charlton Heston as Moses from the Bible. At one time, as a Jewish slave in Egypt, he was shown building with mud. This was a very Hollywood version of such work, as what was shown was the use of a very wet, sloppy mix, and so the conditions portrayed were very messy. Such a mix could have been used for mud mortar, but not for the mud bricks which were the subject of the work in hand. The mix for bricks needs to be wet enough to be malleable, but not so wet that its splashes about. The mix for mortar does need to be wetter, however, in order for it to fit around the bricks to make a homogeneous whole.

The 2005 film “The New World” starred Christian Bale as Captain John Smith who married Princess Pocahontas on the east coast of the USA when Europeans first settled in that country. Once the village was established, there are scenes in the film showing the cottages in which people lived, which look like correct portrayals of mud-and-stud cottages. It is known that some of the earliest immigrants were from Lincolnshire, and it is being established that they brought their own building technique with them – namely mud-and-stud ! In the film it was quite striking to see people going for a stroll around the village, in the Puritan dress of the time, with these cottages around them.