This is how the gable end used to look.  It stood tall and firm for a couple of centuries and then time and rot did their work, most notably on one of the wooden joists supporting it.  So it was time for a new wall ……………..

The demolition begins …… am I scared?  Am I worried?………………  Oh yes !

Most houses of this period don’t have deep foundations, if they have foundations at all!  But we dug down and found a layer of impermeable, solid rock about 1m below the house and built a new foundation on that.  It is made from ‘beton armée’  – reinforced concrete to you and me, and has steel bars going through it.  In another 200 years this foundation is still going to be there !

And here we are today (mid-September 2018) and the wall is being rebuilt using the original stone as a façade on the breeze blocks.  The windows are being reinstated, and the whole will be just like before only better, stronger, straighter !