THE first stone was laid last week in the building of a sculptured cob shelter at Roadford Lake, near Okehampton.
The shelter, which will provide a handy seat for walkers with a spectacular view of the lake, should be completed by the autumn.
The project is being undertaken by Tarka Country Millennium Awards winners Jill Smallcombe and Jackie Abey.
Both volunteers have extensive experience of working with cob and other traditional building materials, having already built a number of earthen summerhouses and sculptures around the country.
Jill and Jackie will also be learning new skills as they work on the shelter — they will earn their chainsaw certificates, learn about dry stone walling and will get to grips with turf-roofing.
Jill and Jackie hope to involve West Devon schoolchildren in the building process, teaching them about cob and its historical and modern uses around the world.
When the seat and shelter are complete they hope to visit schools and community centres with a slide show and talk about their project, passing on some of the skills they have picked up.
The cob shelter
project has been made possible with lottery funding from the Tarka Country Millennium Awards, and the site was offered by the South West Lakes Trust, which manages Roadford Lake.