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"I think everybody should be able to do it really. I think people waste three years at university, when they should be able to build their own houses. It's not complicated," he says, as he shows me around. Indeed, he believes buildings such as these could help to solve Britain's dysfunctional housing market, which suffers from an acute shortage of new homes, while many first-time buyers are unable to afford a mortgage.

His cob house, he explains, was built with the help of 20 volunteers, recycled materials and the soil on which it sits. Not a single nail or power tool was used. This posed few problems, says Mr Buck, a former art teacher at the private St Edward's school in Oxford, "but I would have liked a jigsaw for doing these" – he points to his rather elegant hand-carved shelves that jut out of the walls like punctuation marks, on which sit candlesticks, a jug and a few books.

The house has just one room, with a kitchen and dining area at one end and a sitting place and wood-burning stove at the other. The sleeping area is tucked above the stove on a mezzanine level the size of a double mattress, through which the chimney climbs to ensure that you do not get too cold in bed. But visiting this week, the stove was not on. And the overriding impression – despite it being the middle of the day, and the sheep wool insulation in the roof – was how damp, cold and gloomy the house was. The only light came from low, oval glass windows and a few candles. "When I lived here, I had the stove on all day long," admits its owner, who is today wearing two jumpers and a coat – indoors. "Cob does tend to get a bit damp if you don't heat the house."

Who can blame him then if, after a few months of living in the cottage, he leased it out. The current tenant works at the local dairy and pays him in milk and cream. "I don't want this to be a commercial venture," says Mr Buck, whose wife describes him as a "posh peasant".

Certainly, the lifestyle it allows is not for those who love creature comforts. Even the simplest task in a house without electricity or running water is laborious. On the camping stove, he makes me a cup of coffee – or, rather, something brown and warm. "This is oak coffee. It's from roasted acorns, ground up." It's surprisingly palatable, like watery cocoa. But it isn't coffee.

Washing the mugs requires a visit to the stream in the garden to fetch water. And if I wanted a bath, I would have to fill an old zinc tub, plonk it on the wood-burning stove and wait an hour or so for it to heat up. As for the lavatory, it is housed in a separate cob hut in the garden. It necessitates squatting and an accurate aim – you have to hover over a slit in the wooden floor, which you then cover with a spade of sawdust.

"That's one thing I might do differently. That could be more civilised," Mr Buck admits. "Though squatting, I believe, is very good for lower back pain." That may be true, but the damp and cold would probably offset any benefits.

His cob house, I admit, is romantic. But it is deeply impractical, especially in winter. And as a solution to the nation's housing crisis? We must search a little longer, I fear.