I’m William Stanwix, below is my hempcrete story…..
2005: My hempcrete story starts at university…… with straw!
I studied Building Surveying at Kingston University London.
After meeting Bee Rowan and Barbara Jones at an eco-building exhibition I then discovered some old natural building books in my university library. I became fascinated with straw bale building and bought the book ‘building with straw bales’ then declared myself a straw bale builder.
For my thesis I investigated the load bearing capacity of straw bales in our civil engineering labs.
2007: Low Impact Living Initiative
As part of my thesis i attended a weekend course on straw bale building taught by Chug Tugby.
The hosts were the Low Impact Living Initiative or LILI who became instrumental in my work, my own personal development and who lit the spark for the hempcrete book.
2007: Music Studio
Such was my rapture after the straw bale building course that I agreed to design and build a music studio for the local deli owner; Vas.
Vas paid for the materials and myself and some friends; Mike, Andy and Lucy provided the labour for free. I am sure I got as much out of it as Vas did.
The building was a roaring success and was featured in the local press.
2008: Building Surveyor
After graduating with a first I competed in an ‘apprentice’ style recruitment contest and earned a graduate building surveyor position at the Sheffield office of the international building consultancy; Rider Levett Bucknall.
2008: Hempcrete
To earn a bit of extra money I would complete planning drawings for friends and friends of friends.
The opportunity arose to design and build a small kitchen extension and the clients, Tony and Sarah, were open to alternative materials.
Straw was going to be too thick for the narrow extension, I remembered a material- hempcrete, that Lucy had told me about whilst we were building the music studio.
I bought Rachel Bevan and Tom Woolley’s book Hemp-Lime Construction and set about designing the extension.
I built the extension with the help of Tony and his friends Tony and Ollie.
The foundations and frame went very well, then came the hempcrete. Pete the pirate from Limetechnology came to site to show us how to mix and off we went.
I caught the first ever time I removed a shuttering board on camera and I think my face says it all…. I was in love with hempcrete and i’ve been covered in lime ever since.
The building had hempcrete walls and hempcrete roof insulation.
2009: Garden Studio
For my second hempcrete project, I designed and built a hempcrete garden studio for a local shoe maker.
The building had 250mm thick hempcrete walls, hempcrete roof insulation and the first hempcrete ceiling in the UK.
The building featured in the popular book- ‘My cool Shed’.
2011-2012: The Big Barn
I was still a building surveyor in 2011 when I was asked to repair and convert a 16th century timber framed building.
It didn’t take me long to decide to leave surveying and start contracting.
The job was immense and used hempcrete in both repair and new elements. It took 7 months and was the making of Hemp-LimeConstruct the company I founded in 2008 which was the first specialist hempcrete building company in the UK.
The barn project also gave me the opportunity to start working with some people who would be significant in my hempcrete story:
Rob Mohr: is a great friend from school and a skilled mason. This was the first job we worked on together and Rob was a vital part of Hemp-limeConstruct from then on.
Rob now has his own company Midlands Heritage with his business partner Alaric Federlein, who is a skilled Oak Wright and lime worker and also a Hemp-LimeConstruct veteran.
Rebecca Reid is a highly skilled craftsperson who has taught me an awful lot about natural finishes.
After first working together on the barn we have taken every opportunity to work together since, sharing ideas and experiences and generally geeking out on lime and clay.
Alex Sparrow, my stepfather, became interested in my work and first came to labour for me on the barn project in October 2011.
In November 2011 he got his first ever taste of hempcrete and like me he soon became hooked.
Alex was a practicing speech therapist at the time but came to work for me on weekends and the odd week off between 2011 and 2013.
We went on to start writing the hempcrete book in 2013 after which Alex left speech therapy and started working with me full time.
LILI & Grand Designs Live from 2011 onwards:
After the success of my first 3 projects I approached LILI and asked if I could run some hempcrete courses for them, they were delighted and I became their hempcrete guy.
In 2011 they invited me to exhibit at Grand Designs Live with them and I jumped at the chance building a mock up hempcrete wall and explaining all about hempcrete to masses of visitors.
The show organisers asked me to return to put on interesting natural building exhibits year on year and I still do. I also did other shows including UK Construction week and Future Build.
During these shows I was invited to present talks with Kevin McCleod, George Clarke and with panels of natural builders.
2012:
With the exposure of the exhibitions and a growing portfolio the jobs kept coming in and in 2012 I got my first big commercial project; Ashton Under-Lyne Community Centre.
Bigger than any job I had done so far, if I remember correctly it was pushing 100 cubic metres of hempcrete.
Once again it was Rob and I at the wheel and this time we had matching T-shirts.
2013-2014: The Hempcrete Book
I was asked by Dave Derby of LILI to write a hempcrete book for their self published series of books, I thought this was a fantastic idea- people might stop phoning me to ask about hempcrete and could just read the book instead.
When I told my stepfather Alex, who was still a speech and language therapist at the time, he asked if he could write the book with me.
Aware of his writing ability I accepted.
With his flair for writing and my experience with hempcrete, detail drawings and construction background the book has been a great success.
It was launched at Grand designs live 2014 at the biggest exhibition piece I had ever produced.
We ended up publishing it with Green Books.
2014 - 2016:
After the book was published Alex came and worked with me and Rob full time and we carried on producing beautiful hempcrete buildings.
Unfortunately around 2016 I suffered a very bad back injury and had to stop contracting for a while.
I closed Hemp-LimeConstruct and sold my web presence and pan mixer to Alex who started his own hempcrete company UKhempcrete ltd.
On the plus side in the same year I received planning permission on some land my wife and I had bought 18 months earlier so I had the chance to take a year or so to build my own place at a pace that suited me.
2016-2017: House Build
I demolished the existing derelict Church Hall keeping the foundations and concrete slab and re-built using hempcrete and other natural materials with the planning condition that the house remain the same shape and size as the existing hall.
The house has been a great success and financing and mortgaging an alternative build for myself has given me an understanding of the clients own experience and anxieties that you just can’t appreciate unless you go through it for yourself.
As I neared completion a great fear came over me and I remember thinking “I hope hempcrete performs as well as I’ve always said it does”…… but thankfully it has far exceeded my expectations.
2017 - 2020: HGMatthews
When i finished my house i was asked to go and work for HGMatthews brickmakers to develop natural building materials and build a flagship building to show them off.
HGM is a unique and fascinating place.
I developed and tested structural earth blocks, earth plasters, earth mortars, lime mortars, hempcrete blocks, hempcrete lintels and prefabricated hempcrete panels.
The flagship build was a new children’s nursery for the local community. It was designed by renowned earth architect Gernot Minke and detailed by myself.
The building is Octagonal with the UK’s first earth block dome at its centre.
The structure is earth blocks and the insulation is hempcrete. The internal finishes are earth plasters and raw earth blocks and the external wall finish is woodfired bricks.
It is a wonderful building and the nursery and HGMatthews are both well worth a visit.
During 2017/2018 I took on a hempcrete panel house, a first for me and for HGMatthews.
I was approached by Paloma Gormley to help design and build a prefabricated hempcrete panel house: The flat house at Margent Farm.
I helped with the design for the panels and produced them at the Brickyard with the help of a great carpenter Oscar Cooper and my team at HGMatthews Ivan and Brian.
The resulting building was widely acclaimed and despite my previous scepticism regarding prefabrication it surprised me as to how easy and cost efficient it was.
2020 onwards:
After completing my goals at HGMatthews I said goodbye in the spring of 2020, I still work closely with the brickyard and continue to assist their natural building department.
Since 2016 I have worked by word of mouth and recommendation alone, but I thought it was about time to have my own web presence again, so new for 2021 here we are, there are no frills and no strings attached, just me.
I have also seen a growing trend of people using pictures of my work on their own websites ……
……hopefully this website will set the record straight.
2021:
So far 2021 seems to be the year of clay plastering and I’m loving every minute of it, I have to say that being covered in clay beats being covered in lime!
I have been pretty astounded by the price of clay plasters so I have set about producing my own, which are working so well I have started producing them for sale with the aim of making simple, good value clay plasters available to all.
Look out for a whole range for sale in 2022!
2022: the hemp block company
As well as clay plasters 2021 is also about hemp blocks.
Neil Stephen and myself have partnered with Senini to bring a reliable source of low cost, high quality hempcrete blocks to the UK.
The best thing about these blocks is that they are just hemp shiv and hydrated lime. The plan is start producing them in the UK once demand is sufficient.
Visit www.hempblock.co.uk to see how its going.
I’m most known for working with hempcrete but I also work with other natural building materials and have recently become completely obsessed with clay plasters.
I’ve been championing and using natural materials for many years. I have worked in building design, materials production, training and supply. I have written a book, lectured and presented on natural materials all over the country and Europe but I am definitely most at home on the building site covered in lime or clay, trowel in hand and wearing tatty old building clothes.
I have always tried to challenge the stereotypes of alternative building, push the boundaries and use natural materials in new and exciting ways.
I’m someone who is incredibly passionate about building with environmentally sound materials and always open to sharing my experience and ideas in the pursuit of the wider use of natural materials.
