Good progress..............

Saturday began with a return to the area below the kitchen window which had proved stubborn last week. It was a tough job to remove the render from this area as it was about three layers thick in some places; newer cement on old cement on very old lime render! The brickwork here is in poor shape and some reconstructive surgery may be required later on.

Finally after a lot of pounding, the bricks below the window are revealed.

After that slow start this weekend saw rapid progress across the north east corner of the house. Especially on the east facing part the render came away in big sheets. At one point a piece about 12 feet across by about 3 feet was ready to drop in one go! It had to be broken up on the wall before it fell from about 10 feet up, in case it demolished the window sill below! I managed to remove everything within about 3 feet of the gutter from an extending ladder but getting higher than that would have been a bit dangerous. Fortunately a friend has now offered me a loan of a scaffold tower (cheers Mick!) so once all the lower parts of the house have been removed, the tower can be erected to deal with the rest, including the high gable ends.

Work starts on the east wall render which is coming off very easily

The render on this wall was very hollow and came off in big sheets!

An old lean to used to sit in this corner of the house and its outline is now clearly visible. The inside walls were limewashed and the remains of this can be seen in the photo below. Another modern lintel has been installed above the window on this wall so a brick arch will have to be reinstated here later on to restore the original look.

The outline of an old lean to is clearly visible - the inside walls were limewashed

This weekend's "surprises" were two damp proof courses, both on the same wall - one slate probably Victorian damp proof layer dating this wall to sometime around the 1870's (according to the Internet!) although we know that this part of the house was standing in the late 1830's as it is shown on a Tithe map. So presumably this part was rebuilt at some time in the Victorian era.

The other damp proof layer is marked by a set of drill holes in the same wall, just above the original slate layer. It's where a chemical damp proof material has been injected, probably sometime after the '60s. Hopefully these drill holes can be repaired or the bricks replaced with reclaimed ones.

A stone base to this wall with a Victorian slate damp proof layer below the brickwork. Then 20th century drill holes, unfortunately in the bricks where a chemical damp proof treatment has been injected.