Day one. Our builders, Tom and Dan, have begun! They are starting at the ground floor level and need to make that stable, then work upwards toward the roof. As it currently is, the floor above here is very wobbly and wouldn’t safely take the weight of builders working with tools!
We are beginning in the study as it is the room requiring the most work. The walls at this end of the building have bowed out the furthest, with the front wall having moved out almost a foot! The walls, floor, ceiling, fireplace and windows all need a great deal of work.
There are currently rudimentary ‘buttresses’ installed internally in an attempt to stabilise the property. The walls have moved away from these buttresses quite considerably rendering them obsolete. We intend to resolve the structural problems using multiple steels and helibars.
The plan is to lower the floor in the study, gaining some head height and laying a new floor with insulation. The floor is currently old pine boards on joists laid onto mud, all a bit soft and rotten.
The rotten floor boards came up and the guys dug through solid clay down over a foot and filled up a large skip in less than a day! It was exhausting just watching!
A very old pewter flat button was found deep in the clay by our Architect who came around with his metal detector. We think it could be a military button, maybe even from a soldier at The Battle of Edgehill, it certainly pre-dates the house (circa 1700) as it was deep in the clay under the floor.
We had previously exposed this stone wall, as it was smothered in hard cement, making it damp. It looked such a mess though that we thought we would have to plaster it over again, but Tom, a master stone mason, cleaned it up and it looks very smart indeed! It will be pointed and will look even smarter. There is also a blocked up door on the right, when us and our neighbour’s was one house.
Jasper the dog is not too happy about his house being pulled apart.
That button …. are you going to frame it?
Absolutely! It’s my favourite find so far! Have a draw full of bits and bobs now, have to do something with it all eventually, just not sure what yet
The button from under the floor is definitely a mid/late 17th century form. It is probably from a man’s jacket. Whether Civil War or not would be difficult to say. Cromwell’s New Model Army was the first to have mass uniform for soldiers, but I don’t know how standardised the buttons were. Buttons with pierced holes came in much later – so those other ones are probably 19th century onwards. If it was right in the mud under the floor I can’t see it being much newer than that!
Amazing Lucy! So this could be a lost button from a soldier in the Battle of Edgehill. How exciting!