It's been an incredibly busy few weeks and our site is undergoing some significant changes. We have been able to move along with the grant works in the last two and a half weeks, although we were always going to do the "emergency" structural stuff, grant or no grant! This is partly why we were so relieved when the awards were announced. It means we may not need to stay in the caravan for three years after all.
First of all, we had to remove the shelling wheel in order to restore it (in a workshop off site) but also to get at the gable that requires some structural repairs. This is too specialist a job for poor little us so we had David McFerran, the conservation joiner and a SPAB fellow, help us. This involved figuring out how to do this in the first place, as removing a waterwheel is not your every day task and can be quite site and resource specific. But eventually a decision was made to disassemble the wheel and lift each piece out with a telehandler which we hired. Here's a little compilation of photos of our shelling wheel from the day we saw it until the day it was removed (many photos of the removal process towards the end), featuring a few shots from the mid 1980s by Rev. Atwell. I have a time-lapse video of the removal but I'm always reluctant to post things that have other people than us in them.
David now has the wheel back in his workshop and will be restoring it over time, until it is ready to go back in. Unfortunately, this may take some time as the internal machinery and the structural integrity of the mill walls all have to be restored to be able to take not only the weight but also the movement generated by a rotating wheel. (Here's a picture of our recording of the area of the stone bearing with Dr, Colin Rynne, which on this side is completely split apart. The grinding wheel bearing remains in-situ and is the only one in Ireland.)
Speaking of structural integrity, we have possibly the best engineer out there to assist. Lisa Edden of CORA is helping us work through the structural emergencies at the mill. The big gaping hole at the front being the obvious one, but a few more have been hiding under layers of ivy and moss. The pictured below show what we're looking to address at the beginning of the journey.
As you can see from these pictures of the front wall, that first floor which was propped for a couple of years was sagging badly but what you can't see is the state of the floorboards. Much like in the cottage, they are badly affected by woodworm and inappropriate for any structural use and in order to repair the front wall, Lisa has directed us to temporarily remove a section of the first floor. While removing the floorboards, David pointed out that there were "new boards" and "old boards" (the new being possibly some hundred years old, so... you know... not new, but newer. The difference is obvious, to a trained eye, from the width and the wear. Let us know if you can see it:
With everything ready to go, we have welcomed to site Eoin Madigan, from Madigan Traditional Masonry (all the way in Co. Clare) as our stonemason! Eoin is a sixth generation stonemason (with a seventh generation in the making) and has a wealth of experience which he's happy to share. He runs courses on the restoration of historic buildings back in Ennistymon and attends many working parties and events where he helps train people with interest in this craft. We couldn't be happier to have him on the job. We've been trying to pick up what we can while running around sourcing things, breaking things, carting materials, digging and wheelbarrowing soil and rubble, mixing mortars, raking out joints and generally getting in the way of professionals.
The first week involved recording and dismantling the precarious spire of the kiln (while waiting for materials to arrive on site), digging out several areas to assess footings and foundations, cutting out the concrete ramp at the instruction of the Structural Engineer and (with the help of the world's best neighbour) dragging it away from the "centre stage", ripping the unsound wall as far as necessary (wherever the sound wall begins), constructing a raft foundation and the footing as well as a retaining dry stone wall buttress at the gable that needs fixing. The buttress was filled up with broken up concrete from the 1950's "ring beam" which was badly cracked. Some fire damaged stones were discovered just below the slip stone and ramps and we found some cobbles in the entrance way, however there will be more uncovering needed to see just how far in they go.
For a short while, we ended up with an even bigger hole where the big hole was, but it didn't take long before the raft and footing were in, and this past week was mostly onwards and upwards. I made a timber frame for the window to work around. The works stopped at lintel level on Friday, with one lintel in and the other one not yet, and we will restart again in the second week of May. The plan is complete the front wall and repoint, while addressing the structural issues at rear. Take a look at these photos from May 2021, August 2022 and April 2023.
We have to give a special mention to Ciaran and his team from TreeworX who not only helped us with the rotted ash trees that threatened to fall on the mill, and not so rotted ash trees that grew through the shelling wheel, but also came in the middle of the night to cut down bits of dead alder (that would have surely fallen on the caravan during the mad winds two weeks later), and gifted us some wonderful timbers for the lintels! We are going to have to do a separate post with some impressive time-lapses but here's just a few shots:
If you ever need any sensitive tree worx done, these guys are definitely the best!
And last but not least, while all this was being done we had the local groundmen Luke, Myles and Shane from Luke O'Reilly Plant Hire bring in a much needed water pipe. At the same time, the lads did some 100m of our driveway for us. Now we can get in, bring materials and get deliveries without anyone getting stuck! It's been increasingly difficult to keep up the updates, let alone the videos, as it's all happening so quickly but I'll try and do a better job going forward.
And just to wrap up the fortnight's events, we've had a visit from Tom McGimsey (of MESH) and his wife Anne. Tom is a Grade 1 Conservation Architect with some impressive projects under his belt so I tried to sneak as many tips out of him as I could! I wonder if he noticed! :P
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