Slab Hut

Slab Hut

Original Slab Hut, Wollombi NSW
Places:	Australia and New Zealand
Period:	circa 1790 - 1920
Materials:	Timber, bark, mud, clay, stone, Galvanized iron.
Uses:	dwellings, shops, farm outbuildings.

A slab hut is a kind of dwelling or shed made from slabs of split or sawn timber. It was a common form of construction used by settlers in Australia and New Zealand during their nations' Colonial periods.

From the very beginning of European settlement in Australia, improvised methods of building construction were in use. The First Fleet, arriving in 1788, brought with it few carpenters and a meagre supply of poor-quality tools. Nails and other ironmongery were scarce. The colonists were forced to build shelters using whatever skills they possessed, from whatever natural materials they could find. They tried the traditional British wattle and daub (or 'dab') method: posts were set in the ground; thin branches were woven and set between these posts, and clay or mud was plastered over the weave to make a solid wall. Wattle and daub walls were easily destroyed by the drenching rains of Australia's severe summer storms, and for a time, walls of timber slabs took their place. These were soon replaced by brick structures; the Sydney Cove landscape was almost denuded of useful timber. When settlement moved beyond Sydney Cove, an abundance of suitable forest timber became available. Huts and humpies made entirely from timber poles and large sheets of bark were easily erected, but these were often only temporary structures. Local timbers presented a fresh challenge to the European settler. Australian hardwoods were difficult to work, and tools were scarce or inadequate. Australia's colonists were forced to improvise again, and become their own craftsmen.

In time, buildings of timber slabs became a familiar feature of rural Australia. Some were public and long-lasting structures: shops, schools and churches; even substantial homesteads were built of slabs. Others were no more than As workmanship and tools improved, the slab structure became more permanent and sophisticated, eventually to become an icon of Colonial Australia, as evocative of time and place and humble beginnings as the thatched cottage of an English village or the log cabin of Early America.

New Zealand's European settlers also had to adapt to local circumstances, building with whatever materials were available, and employing tools of poor quality, or even none at all. Settlers tended to use the Maori word whare (house), instead of 'hut', for a temporary or pioneer dwelling.