This picture shows the hay barn. The wall of the flower bed has just been built and has been coverd with plastic bags (formerly ful lof animal feed) to keep of any rain overnight while the mortar sets. The builders have started to lay the paving stones and have covered them with a groundshhet again to keep off the rain. You can see that the hay barn was first built of stone, to a second storey on the right and to first storey only on the left, and then extended in brick to a second storey perhaps at the same time as the cattle barn at the left was built. The cattle barn has stone foundations on the field side. The other barn on the right is built of stone.
To the left is the cattle barn, built in brick in the late nineteenth or early twentieth century perhaps, to the back is the hay barn, and to the right is the other barn. At this stage, the top of the yard had been paved and a flower bed built. Work then stopped to allow the drains and electrics to be laid underground. The blue piping carries the water. You can see on the right the hole dug out for the fish pond.
The fish pond has been lined with concrete blocks and will later be rendered. It is already filling with water. I had this theory that if we could divert the rainwater that falls i the yard and ran down to the house, if we could divert it into a fish pond then perhaps the house (which sits below ground level) would be less damp. Give it twenty years and perhaps we will never know.
The paving now extends around the fish pond. You can just see, one row of paving stones away, the channel which is designed to catch the rainwater and channel it into the fish pond. As of now, the level of water in the fish pond has remained veyy steady since construction.
The fish pond is nearing completion. You can see stained glass built into the walls on either side, and coloured glass blocks to the bac. This picture is taken looking from the hay barn towards the house. You can see the porch wall in nearly compete. When you see it again you will realise that I have something of a fetish for stained glass. But I am taking my medication regularly and it seems to be working.
There being piping and drainage and flower bed and fish pond built without regard for 2’ by 2’ paving stones, there are a lott of bits for which the paving stones would have needed to be cut. Instead, we filled the bits with a variety of brick bonds. This, I think, is Hering Bone Bond. Elsewhere in the yard you will find Rats, Monks, Smilers, Soldiers and a variety of other bonds. It is a skill hardly asked of builders in these uniform times. (ADD PIECE ON BONDS TO COTTAGE FILE)
Looking from the hay barn towards the house. The rubble from the paving sones and the bricks and the concrete blocks is in the flower bed, and more will be added, to reduce the amount of topsoil needed, and to improve drainage. And to reduce the cost of removing waste from the site.
THe fish pond complete and the porch framed and awaiting the roof. I first attempted to use carbon??? sheets, but didntlike the result, so the builder slated over the carbonate sheets.
The porch now has the frame for the windows and the roof in place. The fish pond has stone recovered from the building work in situ.
I would later discover that the window ledge had been built so that it leaned in towards the porch, so that water pooled on the ledge and so that repairs have been a regular feature of each year.