All Restoration Updates

This is like a scene from the battle of the Somme. It actually shows the internal drainage along the North wall of the mill. The foundations are completely saturated at this point in time. The ground water level in this space was less than two feet above the river outside. The drainage inside the mill has transformed this situation.

This again shows the drainage regime in place. It was a quagmire that you could almost lose a shovel in simply by leaning on it. The drainage has already started to clear the water from the mill floor.

Across support the temporary steel pins that holds up the building whilst the steel is put in place. This enables the brickwork to be dismantled, cleaned and made ready for re-use.

The trial of the buckets continues. It was important because we discovered that the bolt spacing is different from one side to the other. This necessitated separate drawings.

Here we are trialling prototype buckets on the water wheel they fit one above the other.

Here we are ready to support the temporary pins in the wall and create a space for the steel to live.

The steel for the opening into the kitchen area arrived on time. This is a substantial I-beam capable of holding up the mill on its own when the bricks are removed below it.

The bridge into the mill is made of Eucalyptus marginata, commonly known as jarrah wood. Native of Australia it is used for railway sleepers as its very strong, heavy and doesn't rot.

Here is the footing for the old chimney for the steam engine that is no longer here. The chimney was demolished in 1952 and was taller than the building there is a picture or two elsewhere showing the chimney in place.

The forge is a chance to try out many of the materials and methods that we will use on the mill. This includes the insulation regime.

Here you see a good thick layer of wool lining the walls. What you cannot see is the space age, breathable multi-foil insulation layer just under the weatherboarding. We're already surprised at the difference it all makes to both noise and thermal performance.

The outer shell of the two buildings complete. The forge is on the left and the garage on the right. These two buildings are an essential first step that forms our base. From here we can start the restoration of the mill.

The frame of the forge complete, ready for windows, doors and weatherboarding.

When we found this enamel sign in the mill, it was so dirty that we thought it was just one of a number of sheets of rusty metal.

The sign is advertising animal feed from a company called R&W Paul Ltd, an Ipswich based company founded in 1842. The brewery diversified into the manufacture of animal feedstuffs after 1877.

The company was eventually sold to the Irish-based agriculture and sugar conglomerate, Greencore.

The leadwork around the chimney on the forge is a neat finish to the roof work. The roofs of the garage and forge are slate and have a similar pitch to that of the slate roof on the mill.

The roof structure of the forge has traditional king posts in keeping with the kinds of timber structures found in the mill.

Pumice and Leica. Not their names but the fabric of the chimney. Here's Dave (Ratty) Ratcliffe with right hand man Steve in typical mood getting ready for a well-deserved pint at the Compasses in Greenfield.

Here's the garage after the walls, membrane and weatherboard have been added.

The completed timber frame of the garage.

Watch the garage going up thanks to the team from Oakley Framing.

Oakley framers work as a well oiled team. They don’t stop but keep up a steady relentless pace moving heavy oak posts and beams. The four of them loaded and unloaded 9 tons of garage materials and drove down from Corby all before 11am. By evening the oak frame was up.

Sharing has a different meaning to timber framers. Traditional artisan methods of construction demands good teamwork everyone has to pull their weight and more as they are man-handling big, heavy oak beams.

Laying the concrete for the outbuildings.

“Weeping walls" can be impregnated gently with slower curing mixtures of resin. The water is effectively pushed out of the wall as the expanding resin “freezes” forming a waterproof structure inside brickwork and replacing water and lost grouting.

As this barrier cures, the pressurised resin bleeds backwards to the near side of the wall where it leaks out of every nook and cranny as it forces the water from the wall. The curing resin is shown dribbling down the wall. These white rubbery streams are easily removed when the resin solidifies. 

After six months the wall is now dry and happy. The whole building is far more airy and theres a feeling of warmth in the place that’s never been there before.

The team from Oxford Hydrotechnics injected a hydrophobic resin that is thinner than water into the structure of the wall. This is a common cure for serious leaks in tunnelling applications encountering subterranean water.

The resin can be brewed to cure at different rates. When the resin meets water it reacts by rapidly expanding up to twenty-fold in volume. Big leaks can be quenched instantly by quick acting resin that forms a waterproof flexible foam that fills large voids and blocks large holes.

Removing the fountain mixer - it went out of the opening that it must have gone in through.