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

The Bridge of Terror

This summer, friend of Balintore, Karel memorably named a section of an upper floor corridor "The Bridge of Terror". The floor here is temporary and was built from sterling board on top of lightweight wooden beams. It gives access to a number of rooms in the castle that were previously inaccessible, and so has been incredibly useful. The terror comes from the holes in the sterling board, which allow the tops of scaffolding poles to stick through, so the large drop into the Great Hall below is all too visible.

Visitors are spooked by the sterling board (i.e. will it take their weight?), the visible scaffolding poles (i.e. am I on scaffolding?), and of course the visible drop. The irony is that the temporary flooring is incredibly strong, resting on very solid wooden beams fixed into the building rather than resting on scaffolding, and the holes are only 6" x 6" - far to small to drop through. "Terror" is often all in the mind.

The current phase of work is sealing-up the Great Hall: not only ensuring people don't drop into it but a precursor to the restoration proper of this vast space. This entails installing new beams, floor joists and flooring into the rooms above the Great Hall.

In fact, the Bridge of Terror after 7 or so years of existence, is now no more so I took the before and after photographs recently for this blog article to form an in memoriam.

In fact the "during" picture of the Bridge of Terror is, in my opinion, even more terrifying as although we now have heavyweight floor joists in position, and some insulation, the flooring has still to be completed as finally shown in the "after" picture. The scaffolding is still there in the Great Hall underneath the floor now, providing a platform for Gregor and Glen to work from underneath in safely.

the bridge of terror (before)

the bridge of terror is no more (during)

the bridge of terror is no more (after)

The first of the two bedrooms (RA5 in the 2007 attic floor plans) which requires a total floor rebuild is shown here. You can see in the "before" that the remaining bits of flooring and remaining beams have been totally destroyed by dry rot. In the "during" you can see the new floor joists in position. Netting has been installed to hold underfloor insulation. In the "after" you can see that the flooring has been laid.

The netting has confused the resident pigeon "Flappy" who has been used to just flying through this floor without hinderance. Yesterday evening, Flappy was caught up in the netting, but found a way out easily enough.

bedroom RA5 (before)

bedroom RA5 (during)

bedroom RA5 (after)

The second of the two bedrooms (RA4 in the 2007 attic floor plans) which requires a total floor rebuild is shown here. You can see in the "before" that there is little there at all - just some lightweight temporary beams on the bottom left. In the "during" you can see the new floor joists and some new flooring. In fact, it's almost hard to appreciate that this is one and the same space. In the "after" the flooring has been completed.

bedroom RA4 (before)

bedroom RA4 (during)

bedroom RA4 (after)

The completed flooring on the Bridge of Terror, RA4 and RA5 results in a major claim of territory, even if not quite the "Alaska Purchase". :-) Of late, I have been thinking about what really satisfies me the most about restoration, and it is exactly this - the reclaiming of space where there was nothing there beforehand. I have been quite envious of Gregor's and Glen's endeavours. The worst part is that I am paying them to do what I would most enjoy myself. However, in such a large restoration exigencies of timescale dominate. 

The Return of the Wild Raspberries

For me, one of most moving parts in Archie Montgomery's reminiscence about staying with his grandmother, Lady Langman, at Balintore Castle was his reference to picking the wild raspberries along the drive. Since then many things changed: Lady Langman died in 1963 and the castle fell into dereliction. 

However, the wild raspberries are still here. With the transience of life, we cling on to the eternal or seemingly eternal. Great solace and joy is to be had from the stars, familiar landscapes and in this instance, the wild raspberries.

wild raspberries at Balintore this year

This year has been a bumper one for raspberries, and as I walked past the bushes yesterday, I reminisced about my own acquaintance with Archie Montgomery, as he himself passed away on the 17th July this year. It goes without saying that I cherished this connection with Balintore's past, and his death totally took me by surprise.     

Archie is the chap who commissioned this fantastic drone panorama of the landscape around Balintore Castle as part of creating a diorama in the snooker room of North Cadbury Court in Somerset, which houses the original billiard table from Balintore Castle. So in a sense the snooker table is now back at Balintore, albeit a virtual recreation courtesy of digital technology.

high resolution Balintore panorama (courtesy of Andrew Holt)

Balintore Castle on the snooker room wall

the Balintore landscape on the snooker room wall

This year, I spotted some of the raspberries had a golden hue. Googling reveals that yellow raspberries do occur in nature (a recessive gene) but Darwin found they did not survive longer term as the birds don't like them! Naturally, I sampled and my palate found the taste of the yellow to be superior - I had been expecting an identical flavour. 

wild golden raspberries at Balintore this year

in memory of
Archie Montgomery 
13th August 1957 - 17th July 2021