Tag Archive | building
July 13, 2025  

DIY Small Simple Viking Longhall on Budget

⚒️ Overview of the project

A simple longhall inspired by Viking design:

  • Size: modest — e.g. ~16 feet x 10 feet (5m x 3m), enough for gatherings, feasts, or rituals.
  • Structure: timber frame with post & beam (no complex joinery needed), using logs or squared timbers.
  • Walls: vertical plank, wattle & daub, or log walls.
  • Roof: simple gable with locally sourced poles + thatch, turf, or wooden shingles.

🌲 Preparing your wood

Since you’re sourcing from your own land:

  • Use straight young trees for posts & beams (oak, ash, hickory, pine).
  • Select green wood, easier to shape. Avoid rotted or insect-damaged logs.
  • Debark them to avoid insects & help drying.

Basic shapes:

  • Posts: ~6-8″ diameter (15-20 cm), stripped logs
  • Beams & rafters: ~4-6″ (10-15 cm)
  • Planks or split boards: for walls or roof

🪓 Tools you’ll need

  • Axe (for felling & rough shaping)
  • Drawknife or spoke shave (for debarking & smoothing)
  • Saw (chainsaw or handsaw)
  • Auger or drill
  • Hammer & nails (or wood pegs if you want to go traditional)
  • Optional: adze or hatchet for shaping flat surfaces

🏗️ How to build it

1. Lay out your ground plan

  • Stake out a rectangle, e.g. 16’ x 10’.
  • Set corner stakes, use cord to make sure it’s square.

2. Dig post holes

  • About 3 feet deep for corner posts + center posts if needed (depending on snow load & soil).
  • Place vertical posts, backfill with stones & soil, tamp down firmly.

3. Add horizontal beams (wall plates)

  • Lay beams across tops of posts, secure with lap joints or simply with heavy screws / wooden pegs.
  • Lash with strong cord or use steel brackets if traditional pegs are too tricky.

4. Roof framing

  • Run a ridge pole along the center line on top of posts.
  • Set rafters leaning from wall beams up to ridge pole.
  • Lash or nail rafters.

5. Roof covering

Options:

  • Thatch: bundle reeds, straw, or grasses and tie them to horizontal battens.
  • Wood shingles: split from logs with a froe & mallet, nail on overlapping.
  • Turf: layer birch bark over boards, then cut sod on top.

6. Wall infill

Three simple Viking-appropriate methods:

  • Plank walls: nail vertical planks to horizontal sills & beams.
  • Wattle & daub: weave small branches between stakes, smear clay+straw mix.
  • Log walls: stack small logs with notches or simply spike them together.

7. Floor

  • Leave dirt floor, or tamp gravel.
  • Could add simple wood planks if desired.

8. Finishing touches

  • Carve or burn runes on lintels.
  • Hang shields, weapons, or ritual objects.
  • Build a central fire pit (with vent hole in roof or smoke hole).

💡 Tips for keeping costs minimal

✅ Harvest all wood yourself.
✅ Use clay or cob from your own land for daub.
✅ Use stone from your property for post packing or hearth.
✅ Scavenge old nails / metal from barns or pallets.
✅ Learn simple lashings with natural rope (hemp or jute).

🐺 Viking soul — modern tools

  • Even though Vikings used axes & adzes, you can use a chainsaw for quicker cuts.
  • Use battery drills to drive big screws or lag bolts instead of traditional wooden pegs if that’s more practical.

🌿 In short

  • Simple post-in-ground structure.
  • Natural wood + basic joinery or lashings.
  • Walls of planks or wattle & daub.
  • Roof of local thatch, turf, or split shingles.

This creates a humble yet powerful Viking longhall, alive with the spirit of your own land.  🌙

July 13, 2025  

Did the Vikings Use Wooden shingles?

✅ Yes, Vikings did use wooden shingles, especially in areas rich in timber like Norway and Sweden.
They were not the only roofing method (thatch was more common for ordinary farms), but shingles were indeed used for more durable or prestigious buildings.

How did the Vikings make and use shingles?

➤ Materials

  • They used pine or spruce, common in Scandinavia, which splits well along the grain.
  • The wood was usually air dried, sometimes lightly seasoned by storage.

➤ Shaping

  • Vikings split shingles (rived them) using axes or froes, rather than sawing.
    • Splitting follows the wood’s natural grain, making shingles stronger and less prone to warping.
  • Shingles were typically thin, tapered, and around 30-60 cm (1-2 feet) long, depending on the building.

➤ Installation

  • They were laid in overlapping rows, each course covering the top of the one below it to shed rain and snow.
  • Vikings would fix them with wooden pegs or iron nails.
  • Roofs were built steep to help snow slide off, which worked well with shingle construction.

Where do we see evidence of this?

  • Archaeology: Traces of wooden shingle roofs have been found at Norse sites in Norway and Sweden. Some post-Viking stave churches (12th century onward) still use nearly identical techniques that evolved directly from Viking-age practices.
  • Saga & law texts: While most Viking-era writings don’t give explicit blueprints, later medieval Scandinavian laws do mention shingle roofs, implying a long tradition.
  • Living tradition: In parts of Norway, wooden shingle craftsmanship is still practiced in much the same way, with strong links back to Viking wood-working culture.

Summary

So yes: the Vikings used wooden shingles.
They made them by splitting timber along the grain, shaping them into thin tapered tiles, and laying them in overlapping rows on steep roofs, secured with wooden pegs or nails. While thatch was more common for everyday farmsteads, wooden shingles were a respected choice for halls, wealthier homesteads, and later for churches — a direct continuation of Viking building traditions.