The Restoration - Week Five

Over the past week we have gradually seen our new kitchen wall emerge. The bulge in the bedroom wall upstairs means that this new wall has had to be built with about a three inch curve to match the wall above.

Work continued to rebuild the south wall on the kitchen

The right side of the wall is getting close to meeting the wall above

Finally one side meets and the window opening is taking shape

Steel ties are used on alternate courses of brick to stitch the new kitchen wall to the existing walls on each side.

Over the coming week we hope to see the completion of the kitchen wall and work will also start on rebuilding the arch above the window on the north side of the kitchen. The wall below that window is also in need of some repair so the outer skin of bricks will be stripped and replaced with reclaimed ones. Next will be a new arch on one of the upstairs windows on the North Gable.

From now on work on the rest of the brick walls should be relatively straightforward but another BIG job is looming as its been decided to grout the big stone West Wall. This wall is  hollow in places and needs to be strengthened and stabilised. Grouting invokes first of all raking out and repointing the whole wall with lime mortar and then, 1 metre at a time, pouring a lime mortar slurry into the wall to fill up all the voids. But more about this later!!