History of yurts

Yurts originated in Northern Mongolia and can be traced back to the 17th Century. However, they had evolved to their present form from simple 'tipi like' structures in existance thousands of years ago. The yurt was primarily used by nomadic people as a portable home hence its collapsible structure. The area of asia where yurts where commonly used stretched from Siberia to China and all the way along the Silk Routes as far as Hungary.

In each area the Yurt was adapted by those peoples to meet their requirements, witht the materials they had available. Two main styles developed, the Mongolian yurt with its straight component parts and heavy jointed roof wheel and the yurts in Turkestan with thier steamed bent components and lighter roof wheel. When viewed from outside the Mongolian variety has a more concave profile compared to the rounded convex profile of the yurts in Turkestan.

Yurts were most commonly covered in sheeps wool felt. This is still the practice today where tens of thousands of people in modern Mongolia continue to live in felt covered yurts. This isn't practiced in the rainier UK where cotton canvas has replaced the traditional felt; although felt is still used by some as an insulating layer beneath the canvas. As a result the trellis now has wider spacing as opposed to to before when a much higher spacing was needed to meet with the weight of the felt covers.

Yurts started to be made and lived in here and in the US during the sixties. Originally in the UK tipis were the dominant ethnic tent used but in the last twenty years yurts have become increasingly popular. One of the first recordings of a UK yurt dweller is found in Bruce Chatwins On the Black Hill where a certain 'Theo the tent', lived on a meadow overlooking the River Wye in a yurt made from birch and canvas. This meadow now belongs to a friend of Tara Yurts and the area levelled on the slope for the yurt can still be seen.