Victory is Ours !

Angus Council recently recommended proceeding with Carrach Wind Farm :-( . Our four year struggle to save the natural beauty of this area and the historic setting of the castle had been lost. :-( However, at the meeting of counsellors today in Forfar, a last minute miracle occurred. The Council's recommendation was rejected by 8 votes to 3. The atmosphere was electric, and when the decision came through I burst into tears. Many thanks to everyone who wrote or spoke in defence of the glen. There were fantastic speakers on our side who were amazing and saved the day. My own speech was rather without their merit, but I almost burst into tears halfway through, so at least my strength of feeling was visible.

I will blog more when the dust has settled, but I wanted to let people know ASAP.

3D Carrach Windfarm Model

Today, I created a 3D Google Earth model of the proposed Carrach Wind Farm. Angus Council has just recommended that this development goes ahead immediately adjacent to Balintore Castle. I find it almost inconceivable that planners want to do this to a Grade A listed building that is currently being saved as for the nation.

You can find the model here:

http://productforums.google.com/forum/#!topic/gec-models-annotations/Y2YczuthQ44 

You will have to install Google Earth on your PC to view it: this software will allow you to "fly" between selected viewpoints.

You can download the software here:

http://www.google.com/earth/download/ge/agree.html 

One such selected view is given below.  Tragically, Balintore Castle would have a grandstand view of all 9 turbines dominating the skyline.

Carrach Wind-Farm turbines as they would appear on Balintore Castle skyline

Dumb and Dumber

I've just had a couple of hands-on days at the castle as my summer holiday - hurrah! There's nothing like the satisfaction of actual hands-on work, however minor, when one is fighting with restoration bureaucracy and trying to earn the money to pay for it.

Some friends and I finally dug out the bottom of the dumb waiter shaft, which was five feet deep with hard-to -excavate rubble, due to the mechanism in there. The picture shows the large crank wheel devoid of rubble. One day I will be winding my cups of cocoa up to my bedroom level. :-)

Some  member of the public has claimed that no work is going on at the castle and reported me to the Scottish Civic Trust on the 25th June! This is patently untrue as work has been continuous at the castle since I acquired it in 2007. I am a loss to know how this member of the public knows what is going on inside the castle or on the roof. I can only conclude that this is a vindictive act - but I have found that the castle brings the best out of some people and the worst in others. I have written to the Scottish Civic Trust to ask them to correct their website.

I received a letter today from the company that make "The Restoration Man" on Channel 4. They want to feature Balintore which is gratifying - as "The Restoration Man" has had some absolutely superb episodes on fascinating projects. I shall reply that my timescales are probably longer than theirs.

dumb waiter crank - now clear of rubble!

my shaft is in excellent condition

Hell Hall !

Now that Balintore Castle has been rendered wind- and water-proof, the long outstanding task of reconditioning the remaining windows has begun. After a good clean, loose woodwork has to be screwed, followed by re-glazing, puttying and painting. You don't want to know the cost of a new bespoke sash window, so re-use is good conservation and good economics.

entrance tower with reconditioned windows

The entrance tower, with its reconditioned windows, looks so different. While contemplating the tranformative effect on a building of mending broken windows, my mind went back to a favourite book of childhood: Dodie Smith's "The One Hundred and One Dalmatians" with its superlative black and white illustrations by twins Janet and Anne Graham Johnstone.

Hell Hall : before makeover

Pictured is "Hell Hall": the black-painted and distinctly unhealthy erstwhile Georgian residence of Cruella de Vil. This image haunted me as a child. The text refers to the broken windows acting as intimidating staring eyes. What distinguishes Georgian architecture is its extreme symmetry. The unbalanced bays of Hell Hall tell us that all is not well.

Hell Hall : after makeover

Also pictured is a white-painted Hell Hall redemptively re-glazed by Mr. and Mrs. Dearly and turned into their canine-friendly family home at the end of the story. Interestingly, I suspect the naming of the Dearlys is a conscious nod to the Darlings - the parents in Peter Pan. For me "Hell Hall" has been over-restored: the "before" is the more sinfully appealing! :-) Thankfully, you cannot totally whitewash an "evil lair" and Hell Hall retains its asymmetry.


However, the play on black and white: Cruella's hair is half white and half black;  the dalmatians have black spots on a white ground; Hell Hall is transformed by the paint colour change from black to white and indeed the two-tone theme of the illustrations themselves, is satisfyingly thematically.


So while Balintore is being re-glazed, fans of Cruella de Vil can rest easy that I won't be painting it white. And don't let me get started on that other Dodie Smith book, richly imbued with a sense of place, "I Capture The Castle".

Let There be Light

Let There Be Light

Further work on the attic room today, namely wiring and plaster-boarding. I have some brave friends who will be attempting to sleep in the room on Saturday night, so the rush has been on this week to get things as habitable as possible beforehand. With just one work day to go, I shall be delighted if the plaster-boarding gets finished - though the schedule is pretty tight. In any case, the plastering proper will have to be for another time. Overall, working to such a deadline has been fun - the less one does the more one's friends have to slum it. It's win-win for me! :-)

My builder started to become very fussy indeed when electrical fittings appeared on the scene today. :-) I don't think he wants anything in bad taste to spoil his excellent work. The torchier wall lights with flambeau shades (pictured) were declared to be horrendous, and I must admit I bought them in a weak moment, when I called in at a warehouse full of lighting reclaimed during pub refits. However, I stand by my view that they give the attic room, largely devoid of character, a little lift and of course they have a suitable castley feel!. When we wired them up and switched them on (lower picture), he acquiesced that they looked better "on", and he had no end of fun at my expense: "Will the Mr. Whippy tune start, when you switch on the lights?". You get the picture. :-)

We changed the light switch 6 times, as the builder become concerned about possible non-coordination of  the brass fittings, and I wanted to make sure he was happy. :-)

The light switch in the first picture was plain white plastic (just to test the circuit) and after moving through both showy and plain antique switches, we settled on a repro brass one (£1.99) shown in the second picture - which looks fairly period but is understated and should fit in with modern brass sockets. The "Victorian" and especially the "Georgian" sockets you can buy on eBay, etc, most certainly aren't! :-)

today's plaster-boarding and wall light installation

the wall lights' grand "switch-on"

Elegant in Ermine

As I walked through the castle courtyard today, a stoat in its white winter pelt crossed my path and dashed into the wood pile for refuge. Whoa - this is the first time I had seen a stoat in ermine. :-) What a beautiful animal. I had been hearing a creature moving in the castle's loft during the night above my bedroom, and had assumed it was a mouse even though it had seemed a lot bigger and louder than usual. Mystery solved - it was the stoat. This would also explain why the mouse numbers have been down inside the castle of late - this is a good thing.

It was also in the mountains above Balintore, a couple of winters ago, that I first saw hares in their white winter coats. My friends pointed them out. Up to this point I had been thinking "Most unusual for sheep to be up here.". :-)

The Ugly Mystery

Today, I received a DVD through the post of the horror film "The Ugly". I did not order this and know of no-one who would send me this. I am somewhat concerned - ID theft or insult? :-( Did you send me this film, or know who did? The envelope was empty apart from the DVD - no documentation whatsoever. Even Sherlock Holmes would be stumped. :-) I will have to view for clues!

"The Ugly" mystery - do you know anything?

Attic Room Dry-Lining

Yesterday, I helped my builder construct a stud wall on the east facing gable end of the attic room in the entrance tower. The day before (Monday) I helped with the stud wall on the west facing gable.

Now with all surfaces insulated, it is the one and only WARM room in the castle. You can literally feel the temperature difference when entering. It's all I can do to hold myself back from moving in - however, it is sensible to do the wiring and plaster-boarding first! :-)

We built the walls directly underneath original Victorian roof beams. For once, Victorian precision was lacking and the beam on the west side sloped down from left to right by a whole inch. This took some working around.

new west gable end stud wall

new east gable end stud wall

Secret Carvings and Roasting One's Own Nuts

Today (Sunday) my friend Andrew and I assaulted the outstanding roof insulation at top of the entrance tower of Balintore Castle. I was still guiltily in bed when Andrew arrived (was it 10AM?) but despite the late start we managed to finish the insulation around 6PM. So a particularly rewarding day's work.  I proved singularly incapable of hammering in any nail with enough force to tack things into position, but hopefully made up for this by crawling round the minuscule loft spaces around the cold water tank to guide the insulation into position.

completed insulation

completed insulation - detail

There are always new things to notice at Balintore Castle, and while standing around for a minute or so, I noticed that a block of stone that had been hidden behind a wall (and was now exposed) had an intricate corner carving on it. Had the mason messed it up and just used the spoiled block in the fabric of the building, or was it a little apprentice piece? The stone is limestone, which in only used in very small quantities at the castle, generally for carved internal details. It looks like it might have been intended as a detailing for the internal windows between the grand saloon and the principal bedroom corridor.

secret carving that was hidden behind lath-and-plaster

One of my life principles, which I expound regularly to Andrew, is that it is ALWAYS possible to do something new every day of one's life. It is both an exhortation to behave "out of the box", but also to observe "out of the box". Fortunately, today's new task was not hard to identify: roasting one's nuts on an open fire. Neither of us had done this before, and Andrew had never even had a chestnut before. We found that around 10 minutes in a wood-burner wrapped in foil was about optimum - caramelised and delicious but not too burnt.  There is something about chestnuts that limits one to not having that many. One of my errors was once buying a large can of canned chestnuts. They need to be used sparingly, so I didn't use them all before they went off. However, loose chestnuts are another matter - one can roast on demand.

HOT - peel carefully
roasting one's own chestnuts on an open fire