Cruck Cottage, Torthorwald – a new folk song about Scotland’s last standing cruck‑built home

Описание: Cruck Cottage is a rare survivor of a once‑common medieval building tradition. Its curved oak cruck frames — left in their natural shape — hold up the roof, making it one of the last standing examples of this kind of dwelling in the country.
Last year, one of the Trustees visited our Golden Years group in Hightae and shared the remarkable story of the cottage: how it was built, how it fell into ruin, and how local volunteers brought it back to life. That talk inspired this song.

This video includes:
• a short spoken introduction
• a rough demo of the first verse
• the chorus
• B‑roll filmed at Cruck Cottage
• footage from Ivy’s Attic

I’m looking for trad musicians — fiddle, whistle, pipes, bodhrán, guitar, anything — to help me record a full version. If you’d like to be involved, please get in touch.
L:YRICS
Cruck Cottage sits below the ruins
of Castle Tor-Thor-Auld
Her lime washed walls winter white
Her thatch black autumn gold
Her windows neatly painted
Her paths well maintained
Many hands work as one
So this way she’ll remain

But it was not always this way
These past four hundred years
Often times she lay abandoned
Her turf and thatch disappeared
And come nineteen ninety
She’d slipped to deep despair
Till the owner Iain Mills
Gifted her to the Solway's care

CHORUS
Oak trunks strong
Hold the crucks
Turf and straw
Protect the roof
Hands and skill
Build the walls
But Love and kin
Make the home

Repairs and restoration
Were agreed with all concerned
Local folk and willing hands
Would bring her back again
Michael Todd set oak to oak
Jeremy Cox laid the straw
Roger Lewis built the dykes
Jools Cox set the cobble path
CHORUS
Oak trunks strong
Hold the crucks
Turf and straw
Protect the roof
Hands and skill
Build the walls
But Love and kin
Make the home
Cruck Cottage now stands alone
The last of her kind
A testament to the skills
We’ve all but left behind
To remind us how we built
From what was near to hand
Chiselled stone hand sawn timber
Spade dug clay and quarried sand

CHORUS
Oak trunks strong
Hold the crucks
Turf and straw
Protect the roof
Hands and skill
Build the walls
But Love and kin
Make the home x2


Shared with the full support of the Cruck Cottage Trustees.
Filmed and recorded in Dumfries & Galloway.
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