Fell Foot Farm, Little Langdale

At the same time the major rebuilding of a barn wall is taking place at Fell Foot, Little Langdale.  As you can see from the photographs, this work involves propping the floor and the whole roof to dismantle the wall and then rebuild it.  For this work we are using a local contractor, John Charnley, who is the son of our tenant farmer Philip Charnley.  The finished results will be in the next blog.

Galava Gate Roman Fort, Ambleside

It has been a while since our blog was updated but we have not been idle.  Our builders have been working with volunteers on the Roman fort at Galava Gate, Ambleside.  Works include de-turfing, cleaning and consolidation of existing walls.  Phill, Adam, John and Bryan have worked with different volunteers over the past 15 days helping them with the consolidation work on the walls of the fort that were last excavated in 1913.  The work has been carried out in conjunction with archaeologist Jamie Lund. The event is supported by the Heritage Lottery Fund and forms part of the Windermere Reflections programme.





Low Hallgarth

Phill replastering an internal wall after the refurbishment of Low Hallgarth farmhouse using traditional materials, lime mortar and hair.

The property is prone to flooding so in the living room we lifted the existing stone flags and put a drain to the outside culvert to solve this problem. 

Interesting features in this property are the large oak beams supporting the ceilings and the wedding cupboard in the front room dated 1682.

We have just completed the refurbishment of High Loanthwaite, Hawkshead by installation of a new kitchen, central heating, secondary glazing, decoration and a new wood burning stove.  The two pictures below show the fireplace originally and after opening up the original alcove and installation of a multi fuel stove.



High Loanthwaite lounge fire before.....



and after, a bit of a difference.



 Re-furbished bathroom at High Loanthwaite

The builders have been busy too with the re-roof of Tilberthwaite Cottage using second hand slates and fixed with copper nails to ensure a longer lasting job.  Also the loft was insulated to bring the property up to more modern standards.



Adam fixing some slates with copper nails......




applying the bed for the sandstone ridge......




fixing the sandstone ridge and ......



the finished article.






A rather unusual task has been  to clear the void between Underhelm Cottage and the banking that it is built into as this void is blocked with silt causing damp and discolouration into the rear of the property.  A lot of our properties are built into the ground and this does cause a problem with damp and condensation on stone built structures dating from the late 1600s.  As you can see from the photographs, Ricky is demonstrating the use of a shovel specially adapted for the job. This can be rented - complete with operative - by anyone in a similar situation!

                                                       

                                                       

                                                       
                                                       

The finished job should stop the damp and discolouration in the cottage after a period of time.

Another interesting job for the joiners, Bill and Russ, was to remake the five sided seat that fits around the stone cairn on the piece of common land outside the Britannia Inn at Elterwater.  Again, constructed from pitch pine because of it's durability and we have even used some recycled wood from Allan Bank improving our carbon footprint.

The seat starting to take shape in the joiner's shop at Thwaite

                           

Bill adjusting the underneath

                              

Bill and Russ assembling in the joiner's shop before fitting at Elterwater

                              

Russ just testing that it works