Greystones iron age round house

I have previously blipped the outside of the replica iron age round house at Greystones Nature Reserve. Today Ann and I saw a very nice volunteer there and he gave us a little tour.  This was a family dwelling so the paintings would not have been on the wall but they are indicative of illustrations of the time period. We both expected to see a hole in the roof for the smoke but he explained that sparks would have set the thatch on fire so instead the smoke would just escape through the straw and also would have the added benefit of putting off the vermin and other creatures who would disturb the straw. He did say it gets very smoky in there!
In extras one of the cows in the herd who do the self-milking. We watched the process and saw the machine cleaning the udders and then doing the milking. As one cow went through the machine a second one walked in, only for the feeding tray to lift within a few seconds and the machine to retract, this was clearly a cow that had been milked already and was coming in for seconds (they get a feed while the machine works). We laughed when we saw it join the back of the queue to try again.