Patching Aunty Nellie's Room

If evidence be needed, this blog entry illustrates how the restoration of Balintore Castle, is preserving as much original fabric as possible. The two photograph below of current work in Aunty Nellie's bedroom show how we are patching-in the missing sections of lath-and-plaster with plasterboard. 

patching around the fireplace

patching round the window and, er,  Glen

The circular WC room in the corner of Aunty Nellie's room was in a far worse state than I had feared. As the bedroom proper had had its flooring taken out, we had been too busy balancing on the beams to pay attention to the turret room, which had a random pile of floor boards lying on the ground. When we lifted the floor boards, this is what we saw:

the adjoining turret room before

Glen had been standing in this small room. We are not sure what was holding him up as what was remaining of the beams, was totally rotten. Anyhow, here is the "after":

the adjoining turret room after

The floor beams were reconstructed, and indeed we used old original Balintore flooring. If you look very carefully, you can see the transition between the modern flooring in the bedroom proper (foreground) and the reclaimed original flooring in the turret room (background). We do not have much original flooring surviving from Balintore, and certainly not enough to do a whole room, but we can use it in small areas and ensure that we are recycling and preserving the spirit and material of the castle. 

A Walk with a Mobile

With the shorter days, it is ever more important to get out while it is light, and I managed to fit in a walk roughly between 6PM and 7PM this evening (29th September 2021), as the sun was dropping below the hills surrounding the castle. For the first time ever I strode out with a pedometer vis a vis, my mobile phone and an app! I had been talking to someone earlier in the day about strides counts, so figured now was the time. According, I did two of my normal walks back-to-back, to get that count up (5562!).

I walked to the upper weir which used to supply the castle's hydroelectric station, and then up over the top of the forest planted on the steep slope immediately behind the castle.

My other technological companion on the walk was the Seek app which is amazing at identifying animal and plant species.

Seek identified the genus of this coral fungus shown below as Clavulinopsis, but could not manage the species. However, with a little googling I am pretty certain it is Clavulinopsis luteoalba (or Apricot Club) which is common on grazed land.

Apricot  Club

Seek identified the heather below as Bell Heather (Erica cinerea). I knew this one already as my friend Andrew explained that the seed heads rattle like tiny bells. Amazingly, this is still mostly in flower with some seed heads, and its particularly deep colour contributes to the famous purple hue of the hills of Scotland.

Bell Heather

Seek identified the plant below as Common Heather (Calluna vulgaris). All you can see are the rather dull seed heads due to the time of year, but this is another plant which which contributes to the purple hue of the hills. I always feel cheated by an identification with "common" in the name, as it is just a way of saying "there is a lot of it about" rather than an identification per se.

Common Heather

For completeness, I should mention that the third of the three plants which contributes to the purple colour of the Scottish hills is Cross-Leaved Heath (Erica tetralix).

So one is never alone with a mobile. I fell into the trap of checking my stride count every so often, which is precisely why I had not installed such an app before. Hopefully, it will stay "all about the walk" and not about the numbers.

Porcini Portunity?

Having been fed some delicious home-made Porcini soup by visitors to Balintore Castle a few days ago, today I believe I have myself discovered, at an undisclosed location in the vicinity, a baby Porcini.

the candidate Porcini

I am waiting for it to grow up, and if no one pre-empts me, I shall cull for consumption. Can anyone advise on the identification (for the obvious reasons)?  :-)

The Porcini for the soup was discovered in a wood on an impressive hike from Balintore to Glen Clova. If only I was that fit. The second half of the hike follows the famous "Minister's Path" which is a shortcut over the hills that the 19th Century peripatetic minster would take from Glen Prosen Church to Glen Clova Church. This path has been on my bucket list for some time.

Half Way Across

What use is a weekend? Why, for stepping back and reviewing progress between working weeks. :-)

Anyhow, this weekend I decided to photograph progress in room RA13 (as labelled in the 2007 attic floor plans). As you can see in the mild panorama below, the flooring is almost exactly half-way across the room.

The close-up below reveals new beams spliced onto the side of old beams which had to have their rotten ends chopped off. The nail gun is eagerly awaiting Monday morning, to resume business.

The photograph below shows one of the beams that was removed. You can see on the right hand end that there has been so much dry rot that virtually nothing remains.

One interesting phenomenon we have observed in newly floored-rooms, is that we are starting to notice details for the first time, such as signatures of past decorators on the walls. The reason? Well now we do not have to look so intently where we place our feet. Previously, there were holes, and not falling through them was a matter of life and death. :-)

Carpet-Bagging

I don't normally blog about the prices of antiques, as to be frank it would be rather vulgar. However, there are rare exceptions where the story is good enough. It goes without saying that the Balintore antique budget is a shoestring one, and walking-away is the norm.

Last Thursday, I spotted a Victorian carpet armchair for sale at an auction room in Devon. 

carpet armchair on sale at Devon auction

Three things about this chair jumped out at me: I loved it; I have a pair of these and matching chaise longue already; and it retains its original fabric. It was a no brainer that having a third identical chair was a good thing. Perhaps the price would be low as it is not part of a pair?

It goes without saying that carpet chairs are incredibly hard-wearing as the upholstery fabric is essentially carpet, and in consequence they are the most likely to still be covered in their original material. I had picked up the two chairs and the chaise longue for £60. However, the quest to purchase affordable armchairs with their original fabric had admittedly taken about 7 years. 

Anyhow, I thought I would put a bid on of £60 for this single chair and thought at this level I had a good fighting chance. Anyhow, it sold for £320 !!!!!! It was good to miss by a mile as one didn't just miss out, and of course it made me even happier about the previous purchase. :-)

Post Scriptum. I had always assumed the term "carpet-bagger" meant adventurer. For example, in Jules Verne's novel "Around the World in 80 Days", the hero Phileas Fogg travels with a carpet-bag. However, it actually means an asset-stripper who has come in from elsewhere. So in one sense a carpet-bagger is a financial adventurer. Presumably, the booty gets removed in the carpet-bag, which in the 19th Century was known to be a rather cheap (and I daresay disreputable) item. 

Now You See Him ...

Glen is the newest recruit to project Balintore. He is helping Gregor with the heavy work of rebuilding floors. This blog entry deals with the rebuilding of the floor of room RA13, as labelled in the 2007 attic floor plans.

Look at the coving at the top right of the hallway in the first photo - this is immediately below room RA13. In the second photo, both Glen and the coving have gone, with plastic buckets holding the material that has been removed. :-) 

before coving removal

after coving removal

It's horrible losing original fabric, but this was adhering to rotten wood which had to be removed to put the new floor in place. At least, in these photos, I have a visual record.

Another aspect of rebuilding floors is repairing rotten beams. The beam shown below is known as a flitch beam. Between two 12" x 6" wooden beams is a cast iron metal plate. The bolted-together composite (the flitch beam) provides strength and resistant to twisting. The rotten ends of the wooden beam have been sawn off. You can see some residual dry-rot damage in the centre of the cut ends. The dry-rot is fortunately no longer active.

In the second picture the wooden beams ends have been replaced by modern reclaim beams - and these have been packed to the cast iron plate and bolted through, so an improvised but strong solution.

before beam repair

after beam repair

The room being refloored had its original flooring sawn out and sold on long ago - pretty criminal if you ask me. Anyhow, you can see the short sawn ends of the floor boards by the skirting board in the photo below. These have to be removed for the new floor to be put in place. They are only good as firewood and this photo is the last formal record of their existence. 

remnants of original flooring

It's Gotta Go!

There a short section of connecting corridor which joins the top floor corridor to the circular stair well in the great tower (currently filled with scaffolding).

On the right hand wall of this connecting corridor in the photo below there is surviving plasterwork. This whole section of plaster moves in its entirety quite easily, showing that nothing can be saved.

However, the rule at Balintore is not to remove existing fabric until it absolutely has to go i.e. when new construction occurs in the area. The existing fabric provides clues as to the original set-up, and this is vital for a faithful restoration.

What the plasterwork tells us is that there was no door on either side of this connecting corridor as there is no visible evidence of door posts. You could simply not tell this from bare stonework alone.

Ironically, we will be placing a temporary door here to stop people falling down the stair well - long since devoid of the stairs - so we need a solid affixation point for the door posts. Hence the section of plaster had to go!

This blog records the section of plaster before removal.

plaster before removal

The next close-up photo of the plaster shows the 3 plaster layers clearly:

1. the bonding coat pushed into the wooden laths with diamond scratching on top
2. the under coat adhering onto the diamond scratching
3. the finishing coat making up the wall surface

plaster before removal (close up)

The final image shows the wall after the plaster and underlying wooden framework have been totally removed.

wall with plaster removed