Methuselah

     This is round the back again - these photos were taken last season, after all the main groundworks were back-filled. Most of the repairs and replacements to the timber frame at the rear are nearing completion now.

     Here we can see an awkward area right in the corner that had to be tackled off the scaffold tower. The horizontal member is new, the diagonal brace is reclaimed.

     Here Terran is laid to stop the ground disturbed by groundworks from working it's way up through the new stone I'm about to put down. As you can see, most of the timber frame is complete, the remaining bit of nasty masonry is actually an original doorway that was later blocked-in. Where I am standing will actually be inside the model railway room when complete.

     I had to reduce the rear yard back down to it's original level  - many tons were removed. The stone will help it drain - there is a new land-drain under it anyway - and I will lay stone flags or sets for the paths. The big plastic tank is going up into the loft of the cider mill that you can see behind as a header-tank for the water system.

     The yard buildings on the left will be rebuilt and extended past the camera to house the railway etc. The part in the corner is the brew-house and will be the utility, the woodshed nearest is too far gone so will be rebuilt.

     The main roof is pretty good as you can see - the projects saving-grace, as everything has stayed nice and dry inside. My new gutters have also helped to stop most of the wetting of the walls when it rains.

42 minutes ago, Mikkel said:

Every society in the world is built on invisible and forgotten groundwork .

 

Lovely photos. That barn could hold a layout or two.

     Sadly, the big barn is still owned by the farmer. I do have space in the hop kilns at first storey level......but then I wouldn't be able to link to the garden layout when I build that - hence the extension to the shed behind the farmhouse. When I was young, conventional wisdom said you just didn't run OO outside, but actually - it can work very well. Some folks have been doing it for ten to twenty years. You can run full-length trains....and the natural light really brings the models to life. For me, it's not an alternative to indoors - just an extra dimension.

     Here is a guy called Craig Owen, who I think posts somewhere on RMweb. Here he's running both RTR and some kit locos  - he seems to have hundreds of locos...!

     Last summer. Lots of unavoidable work done - but it never seems to look much different outside....! Lots of groundworks were carried out. Being buried it's all consigned to invisibility. A lot of time and expense, yet even I find myself disregarding it after  time.

     Queue Judy Garland....... :-)

Certainly no pot of gold....   :-P

42 minutes ago, truffy said:

 

Our house was a new build around 12 years ago, so no comparison to your venture. But we have underfloor heating throughout. I realise that the comparison is of limited relevance, but the experience of underfloor heating, and not having carpets, is exceptional!

     This is what my friends keep saying too.....! I discovered a couple of days ago that I've already got enough dug-out in the kitchen (I can't get the mini-digger in there any more, and my bad back precludes any serious hand-digging.). Since the boiler and heat-store are out in the brew house, I'm concerned that the kitchen wont be warm enough - as in always warm. I always used to have a solid-fuel range in the kitchen - love that 'Heart of the house' warmth - but 'Feeding the dragon' is a bit to much like a life-sentence in my dotage...!

     Door to the solar/main bedroom. Above is some original wattle & daub in the Oak timber frame. The particular section of infill is in pretty poor condition, but I can't bring myself to remove it. Note that the daub had a layer of grubby lime plaster over it. Areas like this extend right up to the ridgeline on all the gables, proving that, originally, there were no ceilings..... They must have been very hardy souls...! Anyway - I may simply fix a section of plasterboard over it in the end to preserve it.

     I had to move the door to the left somewhat to allow room on the right, where the external wall is, for the insulation.

     Above the bresommer level, the chimney stands away from the wall. Here, we are on the landing of the cetral upper storey. Almost certainly, there was no chimney when this section was originally built. The section beyond the door is the original gable-end, and isn't original either, as there ar mortices and pen holes for a horizontal member where that door is. The bread-oven sits directly below the landing here.

     This is the door that I thought was a sort of B&Q jobbie.... it just looked too good to be really old. In fact - as I discovered when I dusted it off, - it is very old - just well-crafted. It's Oak, and there are no metal fixings - it's all pegged with very small Oak pegs.

     Below is the reverse of the same door. We had to make a new Oak frame as the old one was beyond saving.  This is really a last resort. As you will probably noticed, some area include many grafted-in sections of timber to preserve originality wherever possible. Sadly, sometimes, it's simply not. The door-furniture is 'original'. With such buildings, the word is entirely relative. One often finds timbers and other items that clearly had a previous life. Here - we are really too far from the sea to expect to see reused ships-timbers - but some parts of buildings were commonly re-used, such as  doors etc.

     Below is the inside of one of the specially made Oak windows. Because of the thick insulation, the window reveals are naturally wide. Rather than simply plastering, Oak boards over an inch thick been used, to, I think, good effect.

     At the time this building was first erected, ordinary folk couldn't afford glass. I have found the remains of the external iron hinges for external wooden shutters. They were lucky if they had something like oiled paper or vellum to allow light in and keep drafts out. The size and quality of the timber-frame suggests that whoever the original building was erected for, they had some minor status - some sort of yeoman perhaps. It's not possible to determine if it had any glazed windows originally, but it seems very unlikely.

     The door furniture on the windows is all hand-made.

     Some internal woodwork.

     The rear of the drawing room door. The clenched nails are correct for the period. They are actually from a pile of unused nails I found in an old bucket at a previous property. They are in fact horse-shoe nails, used to shoe the old carthorses back in the day.

     The lock and keeper came from different locations, but match very well.

     Seen next to the new front door on the left, which is only located there temporarily, pending the rebuilding of the porch.

     The new drawing room door made to fit in the original mediaeval frame. Two layers of Oak at right-angles. Almost as heavy as the front door, which is even thicker. You would definitely not want to shut your fingers in these doors..... The metalwork is a mixture of reclaimed parts from site and new hand-made.

     Another section of the rear ground-floor being renewed the year before last - 2018. This kitchen area of the building has required a lot of attention - more than any other single area. 50% of the floor above has been renewed - joists and floorboards, the rear wall, and eventually, two other walls will be renewed, it's all Oak of course. The floor is being relaid too...

     Mikkel;- Thanks. I do love the old place, I've certainly 'bonded' with it..... :-)

     The well was in an awkward position, and sadly, I had to remove the old cast-iron hand-pump, which I've saved and will restore as a curio. When we lifted-up the old cap, we found it was reinforced with an old bicycle (A common practice it seems..!) and several length of Bullhead. I needed to rebuild the new cap strong enough to allow lorries to drive over it, so the lengths of Bullhead went back it....! I wonder what interesting locos ran over those metals.....Beyers, 517's...Metro's....or even earlier types.

     I daren't get too distracted by layout-building though..... 

Mikkel;- The music noted on the YT posting is;-

Song

Arco Noir (a)-14016

Artist

Richard Allen Harvey PRS

Album

WOM 192 Strings Of Sorrow

Licensed to YouTube by

AdRev for Rights Holder, AdRev for a 3rd Party (on behalf of West One Music (West One US) (West One Music Group)); AdRev Publishing, LatinAutor, Abramus Digital, and 11 Music Rights Societies

Song

Chanson du Soir (a)-14016

Artist

Richard Allen Harvey PRS

Album

WOM 177 Reflections

Licensed to YouTube by

AdRev for a 3rd Party, AdRev for Rights Holder (on behalf of West One Music (West One US) (West One Music Group)); AdRev Publishing, and 10 Music Rights Societies

More speed-corrected  Edwardian equine minutiae for your delectation Mikkel - and some very interesting characters fresh from your Farthing diorama.... :-) . I had to watch this several times - quite poignant when one reflects on the events of the Great War and the Spanish Flue bearing down upon them to change their world forever.

     UPDATE;- Thanks for the comments and moral support. Since I posted this a few hours ago, I was informed first thing this morning that the buyers chain on the property I'm living in and selling - has collapsed..... (****..!!!) - presumably due to the 'Panic-demic'....! Not that I'm in anyway trivialising the CV-19......but all the panic and febrile response only makes matters worse. Hey - ho.....

     Ah well.......I'll have to revert to 'Plan B' and rent this house out, as there is no way I'll get a sale in any reasonable timeframe in the currently febrile climate.... I can't allow my plans to be diverted - or I'll miss the summer season working on the farmhouse - and the model railway and other projects will have to go onto the back-burner yet again...and I'm determined not to allow that to occur.

     I was afraid that this might happen, but despite having everything crossed..... Life will go on, we are all just going to have to re-adjust our expectations for the immediately foreseeable future, whether that be three months or eighteen months. 

     Stay safe folks.... :-)

I never saw clogs in general usage, but in the 1950's and '60's, I commonly saw kids playing barefoot in very poor areas in the warmer months.  At the time of my grandfathers childhood in the late 1800's, this was common. Boots were expensive and saved for Sunday Best and church. At the risk of serious thread-drift;-  Jeremy Atkinson is the last traditional clogmaker in England, based in Kington, Herefordshire. https://www.clogmaker.co.uk 

A pal of mine still wears clogs made by Jerry about forty years ago.

Here he is explaining the traditional method of clogmaking. Fascinating ;- 

Interesting to see people wearing clogs. Clogs seem to have lasted much longer in some parts of the UK. Very comfortable and nigh-on indestructible.... :-)

Mikkel;- Another one right up your alley. Reprocessed film from 1901. It's so good it's spooky. Great detail of the dress of working people in northern England in 1901. It's like looking through a time-travellers wormhole back a hundred and thirty years..... It's strangely addictive....

Paris, about 1890 - another amazing restoration. Sharpness, speed corrected, colour and sound added. Almost spooky.... Anyway - lots of horses...!

5 hours ago, ChrisN said:

 

Mikkel,

I think it is difficult to say if it resulted in decongestion as London was, and still is, an expanding city.  People obviously preferred the Underground as even though it was full of smoke and steam very quickly it was overcrowded.  A much expanded system later, it is still overcrowded.

 

In answer to today's question, what is known is that when we have a Tube or Train strike the amount of cars coming into London dramatically increases.  What is also known is that the Congestion Charge reduced traffic into London.

 

Hope this helps and does not hijack your thread.  The reverse is that the motor car stopped this country/ the western world, (?), from being drowned in horse poo and starving to death as we tried to feed the horses.

When my grandfather was a born, there were no cars whatsoever. Almost no real technology at all as we would think of it today. Are we any happier now...? Probably not.

Horses and wagons...saw this and thought of you sir;- 

5 hours ago, PenrithBeacon said:

Do tell.

A few years ago I acquired a large archive of original pre-war Hawker drawings, mainly Fury, but the whole range was inter-related, like Meccano. The old chap I got them off told me that a few parts had survived through to the Harrier. Doubtless something like  valve or some such assembly. The drawings are fascinating, as they even show  a projected version of the Fury with a fully-enclosed cockpit, similar to the Hurricanes. CAD is great, but some of the old hand-drawn drawings are really exquisite.

On 11/11/2019 at 10:44, toboldlygo said:

 

I worked on Harrier's and Hawks, plus various other aircraft including the FAA Historic Flight at Yeovilton and a Sea Harrier that's in the museum there. 

 

Worth noting too that were part's common to Sea Harrier FRS1, where the drawings for the parts were first used on the Typhoon then re-issued for the Firebrand, Sea Fury, etc.

Actually, there were parts on the Harriers that went back to the 1930's Hawkers such as biplane Fury's.....

A splendid choice , with plenty of options for very elegant locomotives and stock!

I'm gradually collecting a little stockpile of period locos and stock. It's mostly kits or built kits that will need rebuilding, but earlier period stuff seems to be a little thin on the ground.

Exactly - it's more a reference to toys than models.... :-)

I agree with Mikkel: the 'Armstrong' class was surely the zenith of Dean elegance.  There's a useful guide to all those GWR 4-4-0s at http://www.gwr.org.uk/no440s.html

 

Have you decided on your modelling period yet?  The Dean era can certainly provide you with many splendid prototypes of both locomotive and carriages (especially if you like clerestory roofs)

I'm fortunate that the changes to the diorama are very limited with regard to the date. The only real changes are to signalling - and even then only on the GWR/LNWR Joint section. My target period is Pre-Grouping, around 1898 - 1918.

I've only just discovered Mike's postings on pre-Grouping GWR modelling - fascinating....! I look forwards to reading all of his interesting threads.... :-)

Haymarket is 100% correct - stick with it. DCC is lightyears ahead of DC. I've been attracted back to the hobby after forty plus years - and DCC was also a big factor in that. It opens-up a world of possibilities - and the trains run better. A pal in his mid eighties has just gone DCC. Nearly all of my DCC equipment is secondhand. Expect a learning curve - and persevere. There is lots of help available. After such a long hiatus - I've been on a near vertical learning-curve - so I can sympathise...! :-) 

     Mikkel;-  I have quite a few metal kits I've collected - one of which is for a Dean 4-2-2, round-topped firebox and all. Can't recall the brand - but yes, a good starting-point. I have seen some rather crude conversions of the old Triang/Hornby Dean Single, and despite the rude origins, they certainly conveyed the essence of the machine.

     I planned to check to see if the excellent Bachmann 'City' chassis was usable.

     I think I might have some drawings for the Armstrong somewhere too. These were really the progenitors of so many GW 4-4-0's - many of which I still struggle to distinguish, so alike are many of them....!