Joists Ahoy!

On Thursday and Friday of last week Gregor and Gavin installed the floor joists in the Great Hall.  Things have definitely moved on from the end of last year. You can see the "before" here. The paradoxical thing about floors is that despite the scale of the operation, laying them is unexpectedly quick. In contrast, clearing out the Great Hall in preparation took a full fortnight of effort.

The joists were laid 16" apart in the Victorian manner i.e. roughly 400mm. This contrast with modern floors which are joisted at 600mm centres.

Gregor and Gavin seem to be currently fixated upon creating runways in the castle, which may suggest budding careers in modelling, or perhaps simply an interest in moving materials about more easily. Certainly, the new catwalk in the Great Hall, as of Friday, will enable things to be moved directly between the north and south sides of the castle for the first time.

Great Hall: looking south

The view of the Great Hall below shows that, strictly speaking, only 75% of the joists have been laid, due to the grot in one quadrant of the room. The sub-floor is being constructed of 2400mm x 600mm tongue and groove 18mm plywood - the runway is just the start. This will provide a firm foundation on which to lay the reclaimed strip hardwood flooring. 

Great Hall: looking north

New Great Hall Floor Delivered

The Christmas blog entry described how we are planning to refloor the Great Hall in 2024. Well today the wood for the construction arrived: namely floor joists and Tongue and Groove (T&G) plywood for the sub-floor. Due to the problems of storage (a vast quantity is involved) we didn't want to order this wood, until we knew we were going ahead, and tomorrow is the day.

Many years ago I purchased reclaimed T&G hardwood strip flooring for the top finishing layer of the grand reception rooms - this has been in storage a long time! As the reclaimed flooring is missing tongues in many places, I decided that an additional wooden subfloor is required to stop the reclaimed stuff from falling through.

By the time, I went round the back of the castle to photograph today's wood delivery, Gregor had already got it under a blue tarpaulin, so you will have to take it on trust. :-) You can see the last big pile of rubble and grot dug out of the Great Hall immediately to the left.

New Shades for Old

One unadultered joy of the restoration is finding suitable fixtures and fittings for the castle, and I keep my eyes open at the local auction houses. I reckoned that the table lamp below that came up for sale at Curr & Dewer in Dundee was perfect: a little niche and little bashed around the edges so that hopefully the sale price would not break the bank. Sure enough, I bagged it for a modest £45.

lamp before

I am a stickler for period authentic items, and the presence of exterior wiring (a thin brown fabric-covered cable) along the four branches show the item had started life as a candelabrum before the era of electricity, and was converted near the start of this era.

The animal head masks in the base (dolphin? and bat?) betray a Gothic sensibility. This combined with the dull brass patina suggest a late 19th Century date.

One immediate problem is that there are only two original shades left on the table lamp. These were in very bad condition with holes and whatever the original fabric was: it had gone rigid and discoloured with the heat over the years. Nil desperandum! I managed to locate 4 small matching second-hand shades on eBay for £19.50. Et voila, the re-shaded table lamp is shown below.

lamp after

I still need to make an electrical pass, to ensure the lamp lights up and is safe - watch this space!

Return to the Castle

My friend Andrew gave me a lift for the last leg of my journey from Norfolk (where I spent Christmas with friends) to Balintore Castle. We were both treated to a wonderful atmospheric effect, where the late afternoon sun illuminated the dense fog around us in an orange glow.

Things then got even better.

On the climb up to Balintore, we emerged from the mist into the sunshine, only to observe that there had been a temperature inversion and a sea of mist lay across the bottom of Glen Quharity, where the castle is located.

temperature inversion in Glen Quharity on 5th January 2024

This phenomenon is very rare, and I have observed it only a handful of times since I bought the castle in 2007.  Sometimes, the whole of the glen is covered and the mist comes up to the very edge of the ha-ha, so the effect is one of a sea. However, on this occasion the blanket had settled over just the west end of the glen, and it quickly dispersed after I had taken the photograph.

Merry Christmas 2023

A Merry Christmas to all friends of Balintore. Regular readers of this seasonal epistle will be perfectly aware, that you are entirely safe from boasts about overweening achievements over the year and the even more nauseating boasts about the achievements of one's children. Instead, this blog tells it like it is.

Despite a letter from Angus Council prohibiting all restoration work (yes really), a new crew member, Craig, started working on the roof in the summer, to stop water ingress before winter. It is the height of insanity to allow a Grade I building to disintegrate through neglect and lack of maintenance.

Water ingress is the number one cause of buildings deteriorating. Heavy storms cause leaks in areas that never leaked before and this year particularly was no exception. During Storm Babet, I counted 30 leaks - very distressing.

Craig has tracked down quite a number of the leaks to water coming down chimney stacks, rather than problems with the roof itself. Remedial work has involved re-pointing the chimney stacks, and sweeping the chimneys. The theory is that a blocked chimney allows a "swimming pool" to develop on top, during heavy rain. This trapped water then gradually leaks out causing areas of the castle to be damp for long periods.

The plan was for Craig to spend 3 days on the roof. He has now been here for 6 months, but he has proved very useful on a variety of other jobs about the castle.

In the last week or so, Gavin and Gregor have been clearing out the Great Hall. The only previous work done on the Great Hall was to floor over the top, essentially sealing the volume, using money from the GoFundMe campaign.

the Great Hall re-emerging

Gregor was exceptionally happy to start work proper on the Great Hall. "I want to see this room restored before I croak it.", said Gregor. "I feel exactly the same way.", I replied.  :-) It has been a voyage of rediscovery to see the room emerge again. We had been using it as a dumping ground for scaffolding and timber salvaged from the castle.  The remains of the original tall sash windows from the Great Hall are in this timber pile, and we have set aside these and other items that will give us clues for the restoration. Other rotten timbers are just being cut into firewood. I find this distressing as there are surviving parts that have been beautifully carved or beautifully painted, but it's just got to go. The castle is around 200 years old and these Baltic timbers could have been 200 years old when felled, so one is using 400 year-old wood just for the fire.

much diminished pile of grot on the Great Hall floor

The castle has a new door ! In order to remove rubble from the Great Hall
as quickly as possible, a door was cut into the wooden structure closing off the collapsed oriel window in the dining room. Outside the door is a "runway" constructed out of scaffolding, where Gregor and Gavin model the latest wheelbarrow fashions, before tipping their contents over the edge. A pile of rubble is growing in a most satisfactory fashion on the ground beneath.

castle's new door

new scaffolding catwalk behind the door

The next step with the Great Hall is to floor it and I am hoping for this to be done in January. A floor makes a room properly usable and allows you to truly appreciate a space i.e without constantly having to monitor where your feet are going. There will be big celebrations when this is done, and I am genuinely excited about moving the Great Hall forward. It is such a huge room and in such poor condition that we have mostly neglected it for 16 years. However, with other easier areas of the castle restored, now feels like the right time.

I have been rather hands-off the restoration personally this year as I was doing contract IT work for the Met Office which has been interesting but extremely demanding. However, the project work was successfully (as far as I know :-) ) completed by the time my second contract ended this September, and I had definitely been looking forward to devoting much needed time to the castle. Frustratingly, I had to spend some time in hospital in October and December, but I am hoping to get back to castle fighting-fitness ASAP.

We have had a number of extreme weather events over the last couple of years (think storms Arwyn and Corwyn and the 40C summer), and it was extremely exciting to have advance notice of these within the Met Office, until sufficient confidence was gained in the forecasts to announce these to the public. The resulting weather warnings were unfailing correct, and it is a tribute to how forecasting has really improved over the last 30 or so years.

 

You may have noticed the rather low number of blog entries this year due to the demands of the Met Office. :-) However, I rallied in hospital in December when I realised that attending to blog entries that had been pending for several years, was one of the few productive things I could manage. That and reading of course.

I am currently spending Christmas with friends in the Norfolk countryside.
We had a trip to Norwich yesterday, and in an old church converted to an
an antiques saleroom in the centre of town, I discovered this: a candlestick telephone which had come from Lintrathen just a couple of miles from Balintore Castle.

We had both come a long way from the wilds of Angus - it's a small world. 

a serendipitous telephone

I joined my friends who were shopping for cleaning products at a local supermarket, as they are getting the house ready for a dinner party. It was a revelation that people shop in a very different way. I have not brought cleaning products for my house in Oxfordshire for the last 27 years, as before he died my father overstocked on said items. At the castle, I order industrial quantities of basic cleaning products over the internet: the niceties of branding, fragrancing and product differentiation go over my head.

In complete contrast, the aisle of cleaning products was a temple of veneration and study for my friends. They dismissed the "first kiss flower" toilet cleaner (the mind boggles); the "janitorial pine" toilet cleaner and the "two thick moppets".

I have provided a couple of links that prove I am not making these products up. One cannot help but feel society has gone off the rails. :-) With these unerring markers of societal disintegration, may I wish you all the best for New Year 2024.

My Part in the Kirriemuir Bank Heist of 2018

Results Gym, Kirriemuir
(once the Bank of Scotland)

On an unconscionably hot and sunny day back in that halcyon era when the town of Kirriemuir had two banks rather than none, I innocently inserted my bank card into the Bank of Scotland's ATM. I then looked at the screen, but the full sun falling onto the surface rendered it illegible.

This particular cash point was installed in a window opening so high above the pavement that there was no way I could lean over the screen to create a shadow. Famously this ATM was so high off the ground that there are many photographs of shorter Kirriemuir residents standing on a chair to take their money out.

There was nothing I could do to advance or cancel the transaction, so I joined the queue inside the bank to report their "broken" facility and to somehow make the intended cash withdrawal. Naturally, during the wait (the queue was long) the cashpoint swallowed my card. I kept going outside to check the situation on the street and at one stage there was an ominous clunk.

The teller told me that I could not make a cash withdrawal as I did not have a card, and I would have to wait at least a fortnight before they could return the card. "But the card is right there!" said I pointing at the back of the ATM. "We don't have the key.", said the teller. "I do not believe you.", I said, "I demand to see the manager.".

It took an hour speaking to the manager who also denied having the key. I told him that I would not be leaving the bank without my card, as it was my only card and I would be unable to do any shopping of any form and I did not have any family I could borrow money from.

I told him that their set-up was a disaster waiting to happen, and the swallowing of the card was their responsibility not mine. I said that this disaster must have happened in the past and would happen again, and I was amazed that they had not put an awning up or something to mitigate the situation.

The manager denied this had ever happened before. At that very moment, a little old lady came into the bank extremely distressed that her card has been swallowed due to the bright sunshine. I insisted vehemently that I would not be leaving the bank, and eventually somehow he managed to open the ATM and give me my card. Duh!

I wrote an official letter of complaint to the Bank of Scotland: no reply was ever forth-coming. I repeatedly emailed the manager to find out what mitigation measures were being put in place, and he never responded. Perhaps, it is karma that the eventual mitigation measure was for him to lose his job as manager when the branch was closed and the ATM removed.

Anyhow, I hate the inertia and illogicality of large organisations when there are simple solutions to problems. In lieu of constructing an awning, I got a plastic sign made (thank you eBay) which read:

screen illegible in strong sunlight
press red button to release card

The bank manager said it was my fault the card was trapped by not hitting the red button. How was I supposed to know? I had never needed to hit the red button before.

I was careful to chose a sans-serif font to match that of the ATM and dimensioned the sign to fit a blank rectangular area on the cashpoint. I chose red letters on a white background, as befitting signage required in an emergency.

I am a time and motion expert, so one evening after giving a talk on the castle restoration in Kirriemuir, I donned my balaclava and armed myself with a black skeleton gun, in which I had mounted a tube of industrial strength adhesive. I was aware I might be caught on CCTV - hence the balaclava.

I hung around the town centre in the dark waiting for my moment to pounce i.e. when no-one else was around. The only problem was a young, rather drunk man, who didn't seem to be moving."I am bigger than this." I eventually thought and proceeded to glue the sign on regardless.

The drunk man was wide-eyed not quite believing what he was seeing. Sometimes when confronted you just gotta tell it like it is: "I figured this town could do with some better signage." was my verbal response to his silent accusing glances.

For some reason my friend Andrew would not collude with me on the crime.

Happily, I think the sign stayed in place for around 18 months, no doubt rescuing many a burger from card kidnap. I don't think the public (or even the staff?) would have detected that it was not an integral part of the ATM, although I do not know the story behind its eventual removal.

After the closure of the Bank of Scotland, there was a ram raid on the Royal Bank of Scotland's ATM, that caused the latter's closure: a coup de grâce if you will. The ATM's of Kirriemuir have suffered many an ignomy. :-)

Ironically, the Bank of Scotland building is my favourite in Kirriemuir. It has stone canons on the outside that are so reminiscent of those on Balintore Castle that I reckon the same stone mason is responsible. The Kirriemuir stonemasonry firm of George Watson worked on Balintore Castle in 1860, so there could easily have been a member of staff who continued on to the 1880's when the bank building was being built.

The Crystal Stars that Bind

 

marble hallway ceiling at Mount Stuart House

This is a tale of how beautiful architecture can connect humans across time and space.

After my father died, I felt my sister, my Mum and I should still go on family outings. My sister had pulled the plug early on with driving lessons, and my Mum had stopped driving on the day I went off to university. In the throws of empty nest syndrome, she had driven into the family home's gatepost, and never drove again. I like to think of it as an unfakable sign that I was truely loved. :-)

I have clipped my gatepost many times, and I am still driving! :-)

Anyhow, it was up-to-me to do the driving for the trip  and I suggested they might like to visit Mount Stuart House on the Isle of Bute off the west coast of Scotland, as splendid architecture (as we have subsequently found out) is what will get me out of my armchair.

This trip was all agreed. We had some distant relatives on the Isle of Bute, so a visit to them was planned on the afternoon of the day trip. The ferry leaves from Wemyss Bay which is about an hour's drive from my home town of Prestwick.

As we drove there I surprised myself by overtaking much of the traffic. In England I am a slow and cautious driver, but coming to Scotland I was just not used to the much slower pace. I apologised to my family.

Mount Stuart House was magical. I have never liked the outside from photographs - rather blocky Venetian Gothic - but the inside is full of colour and decorative art, drawing on myth and paganism. William Burges is responsible for much of this work under the patronage of the Third Marquess of Bute, who was the richest man in Victorian Britain. I rate Burges in the same category of genius as the better known Augustus Welby Pugin.

I loved the stained glass windows depicting the nine muses of Ancient Greece (Clio, Euterpe, Thalia, Melpomeni, Terpsichore, Erato, Polymnia, Urania, and Calliope), and I was bowled over by the central marble staircase.

The 80 foot high ceiling above the staircase is inset with 6 pointed star-shaped crystal prisms, arranged in the shape of the northern night sky constellations. The sun shining through the stars produces rainbows on the floor of the hallway. The 12 stained glass windows of the clerestory represent the signs of the zodiac. The overall effect is magical.

Jump forward many years to 2015 and I am attending a school reunion in my home town of Prestwick.

My parents were long dead by then, but I was determined on this trip to catch up with some of my parents' close friends that were still around, and the day after the reunion, I did precisely this. My first stop was a couple (Mary and Ian) whose connection to my parents went back to WWII, and I drove round to their house.

It was that nightmare scenario: the house was locked up and looked deserted. Were they still with us? I talked to the neighbours who informed me that they were now in different nursing homes in the next town of Ayr, but they couldn't quite recall the exact name of the nursing homes, but they knew a vague location. So, I drove to the area and was literally asking stranger after stranger on the street, if they knew of a nursing home nearby.

It took me all day but eventually I tracked the nursing home down where Mary was residing. I was very nervous about the meeting. Would there be recognition after so long and even then what would we talk about? I needn't have worried, I fetched a lot of names out of my childhood memory and we chatted away. Mary and Ian and my parents had worked together in the same office. It was just as much of a comfort for me, as it was for Mary, to chat about old times. Mary was now in a wheelchair and had to be wheeled around, but she had all her marbles.

I mentioned the last family trip to Mount Stuart House as I knew Mary came from Bute. I described the joy of the 6 pointed star-shaped prisms. Mary suddenly jolted, and became very animated. Her grandfather had been an upholsterer at Mount Stuart House, and when she was a little girl, he had given her one of these crystal prisms. She had kept it at the back of a drawer, but did not have any idea where it was now.

There was a little bit of indefinable magic about the unexpected coincidence in the almost random turn in the conversation. It is a piece of stellar magic that I will always treasure.