Jam Today and Jam Tomorrow

Depending on one's current turn of fortune, "God is in the small things" or "the devil is in the detail". Fortunately this blog entry is a minor "God slot".

I had some lovely castle visitors today. While a mutual friend showed them around, I tried to lick the kitchen into shape and made some scones. In a ruined castle, restoration has to take priority over housework. :-)

Anyhow, it turned out that one of the vistors was the production manager of the jam (MacKay's - made in Arbroath) that I had served up with the scones. She explained how the label design had recently changed to a white lozenge to make the name of the product stand out more, and that on her next visit she would supply the jam as long as I still supplied the scones.

One of my favourite phrases in the software industry is "to eat one's own dog food". The basically means that software one writes for external customers, is also used in-house. This is a mark of quality. I am delighted that MacKay's eat their own dog food. :-)

Perhaps, the only reason for this post is to celebrate my inaugural use of the phrase "jam today and jam tomorrow" in a non-figurative sense.

today's jam looking expectant of tomorrow's

Beam There and Done That

Dry rot has an insidious quality. One of the drawing room beams looked OK from above,
but after clearing away the surrounding rubble, it turned out to be rotten to the core. How could I possibly replace this massive 8" x 5" beam, given the cost of new timber and the unobtainable imperial sizes?

Suddenly an even larger beam which had toppled from the floor above, came into my view. This was even more rotten at one end but considerable longer. "Could we", I suggested to my builder,"cut this big rotten beam down to make a new smaller one?". Anyhow, thanks to Bill Pitt of Kirriemuir, this is precisely what was done. He cut the big rotten beam down to fit into the position of the small rotten beam - note the intricate cutting to fit a stone corbel at one end and an iron slot at the other! The re-fashioned beam, which we treated against future rot, dropped sweetly and sharply into position this morning.

It was a good conservation karma moment, enjoyed by all.

old beam looked OK from above

but was rotten to the core

replacement beam (cut down from large rotten beam) cut to fit iron slot

replacement beam cut to fit stone corbel

Reconditioned Great Tower Windows

It may not be major structural work, but my builder's recent reconditioning, repainting and re-glazing of the windows in the Great Tower (the taller one on the right) make things look a lot better! 

reconditioned windows in Great Tower

Turn Back The Hands of Time!

A few weeks ago, a lovely couple from Dundee visited Balintore Castle and returned this original pointer from the wind direction dial in the great hall! Given that most of the original fittings at the castle have long since been stripped-out, I was absolutely thrilled. It is little moments like this that lift the morale in the long haul of the restoration process.

As a shooting lodge, the dial served an essential function for the castle, allowing shooting parties to stay downwind of the unsuspecting deer. A weather-vane on the top of the great tower was connected by an elaborate series of mechanical linkages to this dial. The weather-vane and linkages are still there, but all that remains of the display mechanism is an empty stone box in the west wall of the great hall.

It is totally right that thoughtful people remove items for safekeeping, which would otherwise fall prey to vandals or thieves. I myself am safekeeping an item from another ruined building, also designed by William Burn, which I found miraculously intact under the rubble.

I understand that the original dial for the "wind direction-o-meter" which would have been positioned behind this pointer, is in the possession of someone in Edinburgh, who is connected with Historic Scotland. Now would appear to be the right time to make a formal request. Could the person who has the dial, possibly in blue enamel. please return it? It is much more than a mere amnesty, I am willing to trade a large box of chocolates!

recently returned dial from great hall at Balintore Castle

Old Postcards of Balintore Castle

I am indebted to the prodigiously multi-talented Duncan Tattersall of the marvellous blog Ruination Scotland for these scans of old postcards of Balintore Castle. Believe me, that it is a total delight to view how things used to be, and see parts of the castle that are no longer intact or indeed that have gone missing.

There has been a frightful aliasing accident with the photogravure of the second image, which I will sort presently, suffice to say it didn't look like this when Duncan gave it to me. Oh yes, do click on the images as they have been scanned in very good quality.

old postcard: south-west view

old postcard: south-east view

old postcard: north-west view

Déjà Gnu

I recently watched "Skyfall":the latest film in the James Bond franchise. I was delighted that Mr. Bond's back story was flushed out in its full Scottish Baronial glory, as he seeks refuge in his family's highland estate called "Skyfall". The architecture of his ancestral pile is an unconvincing blend of the mediaeval and the Victorian, yet holds much of the gaunt charm that attracted me to Balintore.

Flanking the entrance to "Skyfall" are a pair of gateposts featuring finely modelled stags: one such is shown below. 

Skyfall stag gatepost

Hmmm, somewhere I had seen that stag before. When I had visited the ruined Poltalloch House (also designed by William Burn the architect of Balintore), I had driven through a set of similar gateposts for Duntrune Castle which was also on the same estate. I remember being struck at the time how cinematic both Duntrune and its gateposts were, and that it could not get any more quintessentially Scottish than this.

Internet research then revealed that the producers of the film had selected Duntrune to play the part of Skyfall, but at the last moment things fell apart, and they had constructed their own rather different version of Skyfall on a heath in Surrey. However, the producers has obviously been enamored of the stags and had copied them. 

Duntrune stag gateposts

Well, stantant rather than couchant, but that's Hollywood for you. Bond is, after all, an action hero!

Inserted !

A short blog entry to celebrate the replacement of a drawing room sash window on the east elevation. This may look a deceptively simple operation, but actually involved much time, much money, and a number of firsts for the restoration project. This window is the first that has been "restored" rather than built from scratch. So while the starting point was an extremely unprepossessing object with a rotten bottom, there was enough existing fabric to justify the effort and follow good conservation practice here. The problem was convincing the window firm of this! :-) I was unable to persuade them on my own, but my architect is made of sterner stuff. At the end of the day, the company did a fantastic job, and even they admitted they did not think they could pull it off which is why they had wanted to start from scratch. The conservation does come in cheaper than a new window, by the way. 

The window is also the first of the largest windows in the castle to be installed. The photos do not give an impression of quite how large or quite how heavy these principal floor windows are. Removal and insertion of these sashes are major operations in themselves. My wish is that now we have established the principle, subsequent large windows will go in more quickly, and hope-against-hope more cheaply.

newly inserted sash window : outside view

newly inserted sash window : inside view

And it is with a somewhat wistful eye that I see the window is framing a slightly snowy scene as the icy-fingers of winter gradually retreat. Winter has taken rather too many curtain calls this year, and I am waiting for it to finally depart the stage for a full-on, hands-on Summer restoration season.