Looms with a view: weavers give ancient craft a modern twist

From spun metal to twisted horse hair, these four women are finding new platforms for an old craft

From gallery spaces to Instagram, practitioners of the ancient craft of handweaving are finding new platforms for their work. This, coupled with a growing appreciation for all things handmade and an increasing awareness of the environmental impact of the textile industry, has resulted in a wave of weavers who operate at the intersection of art, craft and design.

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The cabin in the woods: 'When it rains, it’s loud but lovely'

Created from sustainable sources by architect Piers Taylor, and parked in a Somerset valley, is a mobile home that’s both in and of the trees

Mobile home. It takes just two words to stir up the contradictions in British attitudes to that most basic of needs: where, and how, to live. On the one hand, prejudice, embodied in the phrase “trailer trash”, with all its snobbery and classism, and in the ever-present persecution of traveller communities. On the other hand, middle-class fantasies of shepherd’s huts. Yes, David Cameron – pictured last summer, smiling on the steps of his second shepherd’s hut, at his second home – I’m thinking of you.

Deep in a wood in Somerset is a 30m sq mobile home designed to expose these conflicts. Clad in corrugated fibreglass and steel, with a steeply pitched roof and two tall gable ends, it is made from materials sourced from construction waste and from the woods themselves. It was designed by architect Piers Taylor. If you only know Taylor from the TV show he presents with Caroline Quentin, The World’s Most Extraordinary Homes, you probably don’t really know him. While the programme usually follows the pair poking round extravagant, expensive houses, Taylor’s day job and family life are more about economy, frugality and making buildings that challenge some fairly fundamental assumptions behind how we live and work.

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The cabin in the woods: 'When it rains, it’s loud but lovely'

Created from sustainable sources by architect Piers Taylor, and parked in a Somerset valley, is a mobile home that’s both in and of the trees

Mobile home. It takes just two words to stir up the contradictions in British attitudes to that most basic of needs: where, and how, to live. On the one hand, prejudice, embodied in the phrase “trailer trash”, with all its snobbery and classism, and in the ever-present persecution of traveller communities. On the other hand, middle-class fantasies of shepherd’s huts. Yes, David Cameron – pictured last summer, smiling on the steps of his second shepherd’s hut, at his second home – I’m thinking of you.

Deep in a wood in Somerset is a 30m sq mobile home designed to expose these conflicts. Clad in corrugated fibreglass and steel, with a steeply pitched roof and two tall gable ends, it is made from materials sourced from construction waste and from the woods themselves. It was designed by architect Piers Taylor. If you only know Taylor from the TV show he presents with Caroline Quentin, The World’s Most Extraordinary Homes, you probably don’t really know him. While the programme usually follows the pair poking round extravagant, expensive houses, Taylor’s day job and family life are more about economy, frugality and making buildings that challenge some fairly fundamental assumptions behind how we live and work.

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The cabin in the woods: 'When it rains, it’s loud but lovely' https://t.co/kkvnOtX6A1 Solicitors & Estate Agents In One Just £899 + vat .. https://t.co/eLmKfiYyW9

The cabin in the woods: 'When it rains, it’s loud but lovely' https://t.co/kkvnOtX6A1 Solicitors & Estate Agents In One Just £899 + vat .. https://t.co/eLmKfiYyW9 (via Twitter http://twitter.com/conveyandmove/status/1086582353529585665)

Could renting without huge deposits become the norm? https://t.co/lDXqejEV9G Solicitors & Estate Agents In One Just £899 + vat .. https://t.co/eLmKfiYyW9

Could renting without huge deposits become the norm? https://t.co/lDXqejEV9G Solicitors & Estate Agents In One Just £899 + vat .. https://t.co/eLmKfiYyW9 (via Twitter http://twitter.com/conveyandmove/status/1086523218486272001)

Could renting without huge deposits become the norm?

Tenants are being offered schemes that do away with the need for large amounts upfront

Scraping together a deposit on a new flat is always tough for tenants, with the average amount demanded now more than £1,400 in England and Wales. Would you rather pay an insurance fee of about £300 – which you won’t get back – or find the money for the deposit? That’s the deal being dangled in front of tenants by some of Britain’s biggest letting agents.

Rental deposits have soared in recent years, with tenants frequently asked to put down the equivalent of two months’ rent, which they won’t see returned for possibly years – and then with possible deductions.

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Let’s move to Somers Town: one of London’s best-kept secrets

It’s ripe with history and character, from magnificent social housing to spooky churches

What’s going for it? We shan’t mention HS2 and the new Euston station (well, OK, just once more). But ’twas ever thus. Apart from a brief fancy period in the early 19th century when Charles Dickens and Mary Wollstonecraft lived here, Somers Town has always been on its uppers, easy prey for grands projets. When London ended at Euston Road in the 18th century, it was famous for being where the city chucked its rubbish in mountainous landfills. By the mid-19th century, London’s most notorious slums were here. In the name of “improvement” and slum clearance, railway companies saw nothing wrong in charging through the neighbourhood with new lines, plonking their stations here, rather than posher Bloomsbury to the south. There’s no escape from the railways. That said, the commuters mostly dart down holes in the ground, leaving Somers Town, these days, one of London’s best-kept secrets, ripe with history and character, like the magnificent 1920s Ossulston Estate social housing, Drummond Street’s Indian cafes, and the spooky St Pancras Old Church, one of the oldest sites of worship in London, in whose churchyard the Hardy Tree grows among gravestones moved by the young Thomas Hardy (when he was an architect) to make way for St Pancras station; railways even bothering the dead.

The case against The disruption of HS2 construction for years to come. Gruff around the edges. Euston Road is choked with traffic and pollution 24/7.

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