The clearance of the back two compartments of the castle has taken much longer than the others, simply because they aren’t accessible by the minidigger and there’s not enough room for more than a couple of workers. Our luck continues with the floors, which are all concrete, making clearance much much easier than suspended floors.
If you want to help with castle or bridge we have two volunteer fortnights in May 2020 and September 2020 – available here.
This last week, the team behind the castle renovation, particularly Robin Kent Architecture and Conservation has issued the tender for the clearance and consolidation of the castle. This is an essential pre-requisite for the final design on the castle itself, as well as laying the groundwork for the renovation as well. We’re delighted to have reached this stage.
We’ve included the full tender document below (for those who are interested), as well as some of the indicative drawings, showing the type of interventions our Structural Engineer, Steve Ward of David Narro Associated has in mind.
AOC’s laser survey has output some very interesting internal elevations of the castle. These will be used to begin the design work on the building over the next few months.
The featured image above is the preliminary specification for the clearance work which will have to be completed before detailed drawings are attempted.
We’re presently obtaining costs on this work, and will report back shortly on the revised programme.
This plan of the castle shows where the sections have been taken. The ends are squared off in the direction we’re looking at.
Elevation 1: View Northwest from behind the front facade, notice the main turret on the left. Elevation 2: View Northeast through the main apartment towards the old house showing the level of the detritus remaining to be cleared
These multiple elevations, 3, 3A and 3B show the sort of detail we will need to specify the works. Also interesting here is the cross section of the main turret, on the right.
This fourth elevation shows the remains of the wall behind the facade, looking South-east, much of which is visible from the front door of the castle