wichertn.

1912 Royal Comm. Hist. Monuments: Buckinghamshire, South 342 Wichert or Whitchet (white earth).—A local term for a kind of white marl or mud found at Haddenham, Dinton, and in the district, and used unburnt mixed with chopped straw for walling.

1916 C. F. Innocent Devel. Eng. Building Constr. x. 136 In Buckinghamshire, where the walls were built of a kind of white clay called ‘witchit’, found about eighteen inches below the surface of the ground.

1929 H. Harman Bucks. Dial. 165 The wichert (or whitchet), which is a kind of white marl found locally, is laid in heaps beside the line of the intended wall and well soaked with water. When the stonework is in position, the wichert is turned and short straw is trodden into it; the purpose of this is merely to keep it fairly compact whilst it is wet.

1942 W. Rose Good Neighbours iv. 42 He also made the curious three-pronged forks, with flat tines, with which the masoners built the wichert walls of the village.

1951 P. Oyler Feeding Ourselves iii. 32 Hand-made bricks and tiles, stone and thatch, cob or wichert cannot be out of place in the scenery from which they come.

1958 Records of Buckinghamshire XVI. iii. 136 It is considered most probable that the main walls were built of the local chalk mud charged with chopped straw, known in these parts as witchert.

1977 Oxf. Times (S.E. ed.) 4 Mar. 1 The cottage was built of Witchert, a sophisticated sort of mud, of which there are many examples in Haddenham. The material crumbles when demolished.