Roadside Castle Sign

A friend of Balintore, who includes stone masonry as one of her hobbies, very kindly offered to produce a new sign for Balintore Castle. I requested something as large as possible and close in style to the existing sign I had made commercially last year, described in a previous blog entry here. Both boxes were ticked with style.

There was a definite need for a sign to show visitors which turning to take to the castle, as the obvious approach, which is through the gate lodges, is so rough and uneven that many a car has bottomed out, even when I have remembered to tell the driver in advance not to come this way. :-) Now, all I have to do is say "Take the turning by the sign.". This should hopefully direct visitors up the bumpy but navigable west drive rather than the treacherous east drive.

Rather than building a cairn to hold the sign, or rather than constructing a wooden post that could rot over time, I thought that attaching the sign to a large boulder of local stone would win the prize for aesthetic longevity. Though a simple solution, the difficulty was finding and then moving a sufficiently large stone. 

I identified some candidate boulders during a dedicated walk in the vicinity of the castle, and today Greg selected one of these, which possessed interesting mottled colours (greens, purples and browns) and striated texturing. Andrew moved the boulder with a hired forklift. Et voila!

the new driveway castle sign

A chunk of stone broke off as we tried to angle the boulder, so the sign would be readable from the road which goes past the castle. And at one stage during the maneuverings, the boulder did take off down the hill - ending up with the presentable face at the bottom. Finally, perseverance paid off, and due to the brilliant sunshine today, no-one minded being outside.

Greg, Andrew and their winter woolly hats tame the errant boulder

Andrew's hired forklift