Skarðshlíð 1

Eyjafjallajokull is the reason most people who have never been to Iceland can still say the name, badly, from the spring of 2010, when its ash cloud grounded European air traffic for the better part of a week. From the Skardshlid farmland the glacier is not a headline. It is simply what fills the window on the south side of the house, close enough that the weather on it changes hour to hour.

The farm sits in Rangarthing eystra, on the south coast, inside the stretch of the Ring Road that carries most visitors between Reykjavik and the black sand beaches further east. That position is the practical case for the cottage: near enough to the road to reach Skogafoss, Seljalandsfoss and the coast in under an hour, remote enough that the nights are properly dark.

The cottage is one of a small cluster of buildings on a farm still in use, which is the ordinary way land gets lived on in this part of Iceland (a house or two let out alongside the fields rather than a purpose built guesthouse). A second cottage, Skardshlid II, sits on the same land; this is Skardshlid I.

Two bedrooms, plainly finished, built to look at the glacier rather than compete with it. No architect is on record for either house, which is the honest state of most farm buildings here: vernacular, not designed, and better for it.