First Flooring in Great Hall

The first section of hardwood flooring has gone down in the Great Hall, so a definite moment for celebration.

first "new" flooring in the Great Hall (photo taken yesterday evening)

The "new" flooring is 2 3⁄8-inch wide x ¾-inch deep oak-strip flooring. Not quite the monumental 4-inch wide x 1-inch deep oak planks of the original floor, but the closest I could get using reclaimed materials. I have heard many horror stories of new oak floors warping a few months after being laid, as the timber dries out in-situ. Modern oak is never properly dried and even kiln-dried timber will warp. 

Thankfully, this will not be the fate of the new Great Hall floor as it had a previous life in Culzean House at 36 Renfield Street in Glasgow. Culzean House was built in 1924 and the flooring was removed during a 21st century refit to create modern high-end office accommodation.

Culzean House, 36 Renfield Street, Glasgow

I checked throught my emails to see when exactly I bought the flooring. This was on the 29th November 2013 (!!!!), when I obtained 200 square metres for around £20 a square metre from Hargreaves Flooring near Falkirk. They say you should acclimatise flooring for up to 10 days in the location it is going to be laid. I clearly wasn't going to take any chances and the flooring has now been acclimatising for over 10 years. :-)

I had originally intended this flooring for the dining room and the drawing room (each 68 square metres) but the difficulty of sourcing separate 4" wide oak flooring for the Great Hall (91 square metres) became apparent and just using what you have in stock makes a lot of sense.

Gregor suggested planing the top off the boards in advance before laying them, as otherwise they would need considerable sanding in-situ. There are layers of carpet backing and glue on many of the boards. This is definitely the right decision to minimise effort, although the boards will still require a light final sand in-situ. Using a floor sander is heavy and stressful work, and the sandpaper often just rips, and an uneven surface can result if particular areas need heavy sanding.

We are laying the reclaimed flooring on a plywood subfloor. The tongues of reclaimed T&G flooring are often missing, and the plywood lends support to stop the boards slipping down between the joists.

Gregor initally thought the wood might be beech. I had a bit of a diva strop of "...but I bought oak". However, after planing Gregor did declare the wood to be oak. Interestigly enough, Gregor spotted three different types of flooring in the batch (different mouldings and stamps visible from the underside), but on the facing side these should be indistinguishable.

We are planning to oil/wax the floor - basically doing as little as possible to show off the beauty of the wood and, of course, to protect it. I am somewhat concerned that the wood is too light as it is and may need a stain, but Gregor believes that the wax will darken it down. Anyhow, experimentation lies ahead.

Over 20 years ago (surely not!) I helped some friends build a new oak floor in their living room. It still looks amazing, and if anything has improved with age - and miraculously, try as I might, I cannot even see any dints. Naturally, I asked a few days ago what oil/wax product was used, and they found this in their paint cupboard:

possible product for oiling/waxing the floor

And miracle of miracles, my friends have never needed to apply another coat! Anyhow, I will update the blog with flooring progress.

The Scaffolding Descends

There has been a forest of scaffolding in the Great Hall at Balintore Castle for the longest time, as we have been rebuilding the ceiling, the high walls, installing windows, plastering and painting. The scaffolding had three floors, which gives you some indication of the height of the room.

Anyhow, a fornight ago the scaffolding came down and for the first time we saw properly what the restored room looks like. The beautifully designed Victorian interior is back and the reveal lifted all the crew's hearts.

The hall has grown thanksfully. For some reason it shrank during the restoration process, but assuredly all living rooms would shrink when crammed with scaffolding. The recent agrandisement is not universally received: Gregor thinks the room has shrunk yet again.  :-)

There was a single corner of the room which had not been scaffolded originally, so a smaller scaffold tower was constructed to enable access. You can see the three levels here. 

The room also became much brighter, with the light-occluding scaffolding boards removed, and I don't think I would hestiate to say it is actually a very light room - the very reverse of the common conception of a dark Victorian parlour.

There is still lots of finishing woodwork to be added e.g. skirting boards, door architraves and oak-flooring. We are all tremulous with impatience for the completion of the room.

Gavins Tapestry Pole Finials

In the Great Hall of Balintore Castle, which we are currently restoring, there are some surviving cast iron tapestry poles with accompanying finials i.e. shaped ornamental end-pieces. However, perhaps 70% of these are now missing, and we had to find a way to source them.

The poles themselves are easy just 5/8" cast iron rods.  I despaired about reproducing the metal finials, until I discovered they were actually turned wood. :-) 

I chatted to my builders about how we might replicate these, when Gavin took it on his own back to buy a lathe off eBay. 

Last Monday he had his first go on a lathe since woodwork at school. By Monday lunchtime he had produced these:

You can see the original Balintore finial, newly painted grey, on the right hand side. It has to be said that the initial consistency of the finial product was not the greatest. All the turning is being performed freehand.

The finials and tapestry poles were originally painted more of a dove grey, although only limited areas of the original paint survive on the now-rusty rods. We had a grey metal primer in stock which was good enough for the job.

By the end of Monday, Gavin had produced these:

On Wednesday production was in full flow as Gavin cracked sharpening the chisels and I bought him a large set of new ones off Amazon.

The product is now much more consistent, and the just-turned finials have that classic WWII bomb shape.

I love when that "How on earth are we going to do this?" problem turns into a "Let's have a go." solution.

Storm Éowyn

Naturally I scheduled my Burns Night celebration at Balintore Castle slap bang in the middle of storm Éowyn on the evening of the 24th January. Thankfully, most guests did make it. Angus was not as badly hit as the Central Belt of Scotland, and I only had a couple of pull-outs due to the weather.

So while conditions were undeniably windy and snowy, it has been worse, so I was surprised that Éowyn took out one of the huge Sycamores lining the east drive. I can only surmise that these trees are the same age as the castle (165 years) so it is extremely sad. This is the first one to be lost. 

These Sycamores survived almost total ring-barking by rabbits during a previous snowy winter. As no grass was visible for months, the rabbits had to live off bark. A small inner core of the tree was rotten, possibly as a result of the ring-barking, and this looked to be the point of failure.

With my positive hat on, the tree will supply much needed firewood for Balintore for perhaps a whole year.

Some friends stayed on after the Burns Supper, so I took them for some walks in the vicinity. During one walk at dusk, my friend Thom got his right foot stuck in a snare and got brought down. He had no idea what was happening to him and he was panicking. My other friend Aislinn, with great presence of mind, ordered him to stop struggling, found that the snare had tightened around his ankle, and managed to loosen it off. I am putting Aislinn forward for the George Cross!

In fact, we were discussing the Order of the Thistle and the Order of the Garter, and I mentioned these were the highest order you could get. However, on checking online, these only come third, and are trumped by the Victoria Cross and the George Cross, It is only proper that courage should be put ahead of privilege and aristocracy! :-)

My group of four friend and myself realised that we represent the British Isles perfectly. The group had someone from Eire (Aislinn), Northern Island, England (Thom), Wales and Scotland (me)!

fallen Sycamore

rotten core of fallen Sycamore

snow from storm Éowyn

snow from storm Éowyn

Merry Christmas 2024

Christmas 2024 is almost upon us and indeed has hurtled towards us since the beginning of December with unconscionable speed. I was wondering what the topic of this year's Christmas missive should be, and in the end I chose an easy way out. On the 12th of December, there was a recurrence of an amazing atmospheric phenomenon where mist settles in the bottom of Glen Quharity immediately below the castle. I took a few photos on the day and was going to blog about it in any case.

Ironically, my previous blog entry was about not being someone who chases after the best sunset photos as life is too short. However, what does this blog entry contain? You got it: more sunset photos! :-)

Obviously, a winter's day in which mist settles in the valley like a white ocean while the sky above is mid-summer blue with a radiant sun is going to produce interesting light effects, so I kept an eye open throughout the day just in case. Sure enough, there was a wicked sunset - see below.

Prior to this the low evening light shone magically through the low lying mist. It actually proved impossible to photography with my modest camera phone, but here is my best attempt:

The mist blanket effect occurred around 11AM, and I knew there was a very limited time window to capture it. It had largely dispersed after half an hour. I have only seen this effect perhaps 5 times throughout my 17 year ownership of the castle, so there was no way I was not going to take a panorama and short movie to capture the best representation of  "being there". 

The first time I saw the effect was the best, when the white sea lapped up to the edge of the ha-ha, so the castle terrace became a shore. This time the mist was set a little lower, was less opaque and less pronounced to the ends of the glen, but the experience was still pretty awesome. Double click on the image below for the immersive panorama experience:

double click for a VR panorama

Here is the video:

2024 has seen considerable progress in the restoration of the castle's Great Hall. We started working on this in the winter of 2023. I thought perhaps the task would be completed before Christmas, but this should instead be early next year. Look out for an opening event. My builders have been working so hard on the great hall, and I have spend so much money on this in addition to the funds raised by the GoFundMe campaign (many thanks!), that a celebration is definitely in order.

There may be some light at the end of the tunnel, regarding taking Angus Council to task over their mishandling of the castle's restoration. In 2021, the Council's harassment of me become so extreme that they broke the law and caused me to have a series of mental breakdowns. I submitted around 50 formal complaints to the Council which were never answered, so I brought in the Scottish Public Services Ombudsman (SPSO).

The Council did not even respond to the Ombudsman, and the matter was finally taken to the very top level of the SPSO. Two months ago, after numerous extensions, the Ombudsman finally forced the Council to respond to a single one of my complaints.

The response document signed by the Council's CEO Kathryn Lindsay is just a tissue of obvious lies and fabrications trying to whitewash the Council's wrong-doings. I even wrote to Kathryn giving her the opportunity to withdraw this document providing proof that the contents were lies. As a former public servant myself, I know how serious lying is, and presumably the document was not written by the CEO herself, who undoubtedly has done good work in her former life in Social Services, but as a CEO she should be exemplary in upholding the principles of public service. Hint, lying is not one of these principles. :-) Anyhow, the fact the Council has been evading being held to account for 3 years (and counting!), shows how broken public services are and how broken the mechanisms are for holding these public services to account.

It is good news in a way, that the Council's response is entirely indefensible, without merit and often times without sense, as this will hopefully make the Ombudsman's job simpler. So after three years of unrelenting legal work with no reward, things may be changing. Visitors to the castle are universally shocked that the Council is unsupportive of the restoration. And "unsupportive" is not the half of it. Await future hair-curling blog entries.

As ever, the restoration is one of the most acute discriminants of the human condition and the positive connections with supportive "friends of Balintore" are deeper than ever. I wish heartfelt season's greetings and best wishes for 2025 to family; friends; and those friends of Balintore. You know who you are!

Confessions of a Non Sunset Chaser

One of the few good things about winter are the sunsets. A quick google reveals that this is indeed the favoured season for photographers to capture these beautiful events: the sun is low and the phenomenon occurs not too late in the day.

However, I have long made a vow to myself not to be a sunset chaser. The nature of a sunset changes rapidly with the changing conditions. Generally, the colours get richer and richer the later the hour, but of course the intensity of the light eventually diminishes. In short, taken a photograph of the optimal sunset is a stressful, non-deterministic and time-consuming business. And I want nothing to do with it.

However, you do get those evenings when the light is just magic. A few months ago, the whole sky just exploded and the vivid colours lasted for hours. And this evening, a narrow band of land and sky around the horizon took on some amazing hues: with purple hills and traffic light orange skies. The colours below have not been photo-shopped.

The mast in the first sunset photo is a recent replacement that carries emergency radio signals. I am praying for a mobile phone antenna to be attached (mentioned as a possibility in the mast planning document) so the castle will finally get mobile phone reception. Before storm Arwen, the mast was hidden amongst the trees.

The second sunset photo shows a band of purple hills against a dark band of cloud.

As much as I am an avowed non sunset chaser, I did note with some satisfaction that the sunset diminished after I had taken the photos, despite the fact the sun was still above the horizon. :-)

And while outside today, I took a photo of the castle's new transformer. This was installed yesterday, by a team of 10 or so workers from Scottish Hydro, with a suitably long power cut during the day. All I could find to do was to clean and tidy the kitchen - that shows how desperate I am without technology. :-)

I was going to photograph the crew at work, which was fascinating to watch, but some castle emergency pulled me away.

Ko-Ko's Carbolic

Winter has, without doubt, arrived in Glen Quharity, with the first snow of the season on Thursday and then the second snow on Saturday.

Thursday was just a rehearsal:  a light sheet of snow alleviated by bright sunshine. Saturday was the real deal: a foot-deep blanket of snow in the morning with snow falling continually throughout the day; it was bitterly cold and overcast.

Thankfully, most of the snow had melted by Sunday morning and though patches of snow are still lurking in the shadows it has been much warmer, though the word "cold" would be totally relevant.

When guests at the castle over the autumn have said "It's cold.", it is very tempting to say "No, this is not cold.", because I know what is coming. However, I neither wish to be confrontational nor indeed wish to invalidate someone's subjective experience. 

At the end of the day, it's ultimately a practical matter and I might proffer "Would you like to borrow a woolly hat?". And it is to be noted that I started wearing a winter jumper over my shirt a fortnight ago. A fortnight ago the jumper was off and on, to regulate my temperature. Now it is "on": such is the change in the weather.

As Saturday evening approached, I realised I had missed out on my daily walk so rushed out as it was getting dark. The picture of the scaffolded gate lodge and burn by the gate lodge were taken on this walk. They show the wintry conditions. The camera's night sight mode is amazing,  and the reality was much, much darker.

Here is a picture taken from the castle's front door on Saturday morning.  I was reluctant to breach the virgin blanket of pristine snow, but mainly I didn't venture out as I had my slippers on and who wants ice on their inner fleece?

And a polecat update for Ko-Ko fans...

With a random glance out the kitchen window, I spotted Ko-Ko with a rat in her mouth running towards the castle. She was looking extremely pleased with herself. I was happy that she is actively dealing with vermin, and that she can seemingly move in and out of the building at will. 

On Monday, as I headed to bed I saw something bright red in the middle of the corridor. "How did that get there?" and "What is it?" are questions that sprung to mind. I bent down to examine the object: a bar of carbolic soap with Ko-Ko's teeth marks. The characteristic smell perhaps made her think it was edible, but the proof of the pudding ... The raid on the nearby bathroom had proved fruitless, and the swag had been unceremoniously dumped.