Gregor's Arch

The photograph below was taken today, and shows how the recladding of the north and west walls of the Great Hall is progressing. You have to realise that all the plaster was lost on these walls, so the only clues as to the internal appearance are the original plans, and the surviving plasterwork on the south and east walls.

Great Hall today

In the top right of the image above is Gregor's first ever Gothic arch. :-) He cut the shape first out of oriented strand board (OSB) and then out of plasterboard. He was originally going to cut a circular arch, until I pointed out that there was a subtle but distinct point to the arch, which became even clearer once we dug out the original plans (see below).

original plans for north wall

Gregor instructed me to mock up the shape, but before I could even begin, he had bent another piece of plasterboard to form a curve, and had traced along this with a pencil. Amazingly enough, Gregor got the shape pretty spot on, even before he had seen the original plans. I told him, that he had morphed into a Gothic architect. :-)

There is a fancy horizontal moulding running round the Great Hall at two levels. It arcs over the windows, but we could not work out what this did between the windows on the north wall because the windows are so close together. The mystery was solved by the original plans where you can see the moulding in a "Y" configuration, that appears nowhere else in the room.

The arches at Balintore are closer to the Tudor arch rather than the more traditional Lancet arch, that most people associate with Gothic architecture. However, writing this blog article makes me realise that the Balintore arch is actually a Four-centred arch, used widely in Islamic architecture. The Tudor arch is a sometimes considered a type of Four-centred arch, but strictly speaking this is incorrect.

arch types

And the last picture shows the "before" prior to any wall strapping or plaster boarding. Gregor and his brother Gavin are literally climbing the walls, and hoisting up buckets of supplies using a rope from ground level in the best tradition of mediaeval builders.
 

Great Hall before strapping

Tallow and Stookie

Joe and his brother Chris are at the castle today restoring some ornamental plasterwork: the first new ornamental plasterwork in Balintore Castle since 1860.

The technique is called "running a mould". Instead of buying lengths of coving, you draw a former along the wall on wooden battens lubricated with tallow. No doubt Viking long ships were launched using the same technology. 

The former is cut from sheet metal, and the shape is a careful copy of the surviving moulding on the top floor of the castle.

the mould or former for Balintore's top floor coving

The tallow comes in something like a margarine tub, and who knows I may be having the left-overs on toast this evening. :-)

There are three passes:

(1) a troweled-on bonding coat of gypsum plaster

first bonding coat

(2) a run-in mix of plaster of Paris (stookie) and one-coat (gypsum) plaster 

Chris running and Joe bending

Mixing with gypsum plaster slows down the setting period to an hour or so, giving a good working time window.

(3)  one or two run-in coats of pure plaster of Paris

Pure plaster of Paris sets within 5 minutes, so there is not a lot of working time with this - you can only make up small batches - so it is used for the final, very smooth and very hard outer layer.

I was confused when Joe first started talking about "stookie". The only "stookie" I know is the Scottish dialect word for scarecrow e.g. "Everyone else was helping out, but he was just standing there like a stookie.". I think the word has a little hint of the gormless about it too. 

Joe is from the west coast of Scotland. My east coast friends, on interrogation, had heard of "stookie" meaning "plaster cast" for a broken limb. Aha! I may have a possible entomology: a scarecrow is "stuck" (stookie?) in the one position very much like a limb in a plaster cast.

Plaster Panels

Work on the Great Hall at Balintore Castle continues apace. There are 5 internal window structures in the room. Each of these consists of 3 glass panels at the top and 3 blank plaster panels at the bottom.

Joe, the plaster, is currently repairing the plaster panels. You can see today's repaired plaster panels on the right and the panels awaiting repair on the left.

So while this is "small beer" compared to the large amount of new plaster work required in the Great Hall, it is still another step forwards.

In an old photograph, each set of three plaster panels is covered rather clumsily in a Paisley tapestry-type fabric, which looks to my eye like an after thought to make the blank panels look a little better. The panels are there to balance the form of the external windows.

Anyhow, my plan is to make a feature of these 15 panels, which form essentially 5 triptychs, to give them intention rather than their current troubling design passivity i.e. what are those for?

It is not a huge leap from a triptych to a work of art, so keep following the blog for, fingers crossed, some novel artistic creativity. :-)

repairing the plaster panels

Late Winter Snows

Little did I expect, that when coming back from Edinburgh to Balintore Castle this morning, that I would find myself in the middle of a heavy snowstorm. While it is the 5th April by the calendar, the weather is dragging us back into winter. Admittedly, the snow had started to melt by the time I took the photo below (10:54AM) and it had mostly all gone by the end of the day.

snow on the 5th April 2024

Yesterday in Edinburgh was bright and sunny. The contrast with today at Balintore, was all the more marked as a result. Watch out for a future blog post on the castle-related trip to the Big Smoke. :-)

The winters in Angus are never over until they are over, and you must never take it for granted that the cold claw of winter will not come back again for one final swipe to keep you on your toes.

You can see the daffodils on the castle terrace have not yet opened. These were planted many years ago by my friend Andrew and myself. Some of the daffodils in the grounds have opened in less exposed spots. I recall one year, where Spring and Summer were rather damp squibs, that we still had daffodils flowering in July. Obviously, we will be having a brilliant Summer this year. :-)

Dwang Noo Sark Efter

Construction of the replacement big turret is proceeding apace in the Great Hall. The dwangs, or horizontal cross braces between the vertical struts, are now in position.

I asked Gregor if it made more sense to fit the dwangs once the skeleton of the turret had been reconstructed outside i.e. less to dismantle. However, he indicated that fitting the dwangs is a footerie, time-consuming process, so he would prefer to do it indoors.

However, Gregor stopped at installing the sarking, or external sheeting, indoors, even though it has been cut, because being a surface layer it only has to join up with itself and so is less troublesome to fit outdoors.

Anyhow, the turret will be marked-up (tab A into slot B) and dismantled tomorrow into IKEA flat-pack format. Hence the timely photo below, recording this key stage of the construction process.

with dwangs but without sarking

Keen students of the Scots dialect will observe that the title of this blog entry is fully Scottish.

Sarking is legally required in Scotland but not in England. I got quite a surprise when I climbed into my first English loft, and was appalled by the flimsiness of construction. The tiles were nailed onto thin batons instead of being laid onto an entire and complete wood-sheeted surface.

English readers will be more familiar with the term "noggin" rather than "dwang". And finally: I manage to secrete another Scottish dialectal word into the text above. What is it?

Terminator Pheasant

 

There is distinct loss of status in admitting that one has been held hostage at home by a marauding pheasant. But as ever in the world of Balintore, the unbelievable is the reality.

I decided, rather late in the afternoon, to set off on my daily walk. As I descended the steps at the front door of the castle, a pheasant ran at me from around 50 yards away stopping right in front of me. If I stepped down to ground level, there was no doubt it would attack. Shouting and waving my arms had no effect. It simply was not going to leave. Even as I attempted go sideways, first to the left and then to the right, it continually blocked my path.

It was check-mate, and I retreated indoors incredulous that my walk had been aborted even before it had begun by a  bird. I would simply try again later in the day, but darkness fell and the walk never took place.

The next day, thank goodness, there was no sign of the pheasant. However, 100 yards into my walk, the pheasant ran right up to me. I tried to go forward but it continued the menacing behaviour. I felt in great danger from its claws and beak.

There was no escape, as I tried to leave the path at a 90 degree angle it would run to block my exit, parading backwards and forwards in front of me with its chest puffed up.

I was looking for something to defend myself with, and after what seemed like an eternity, I located a longish stick. As the bird came in to attack, I held it at bay with the end of the stick. However, it came at me from different angles and I had to wield the stick like an epee, to stop it coming too close. I was not sure I could keep this up. I continued down the drive, but the pheasant gave no slack, mirroring my every move. The fear and adrenaline had kicked in, and the stick was becoming less and less effective as the bird became bolder

I really did not want to hit the pheasant with the stick - well it was more of a twig actually. Eventually, I had to swipe the stick with a degree of force to keep the bird away. It looked a little surprised but continued to come in for the kill, like the terminator on a relentless mission. My stick had disturbed the bird's feathers so it looked rather bedraggled on that side.

It was locked in mortal combat with me all the way down the castle drive - this is 1km long! Why was it not giving up? It then continued its attack along the road which goes past the castle, still homing in on its target, and it was only when I got past Balintore House that the distance between us increased and it disengaged.

I knew I could not cope with this every day, and wrote a letter of complaint in my head to the local estate during the remainder of the walk. Given that they had stocked the grounds with this evil creature, it was their responsibility to deal with it.

The following day, I spotted some bread on the stone walls either side of the front door, so asked friend of Balintore Simon who was working at the castle, what this was all about. "I'm feeding the pheasant." he said, "It's really friendly!". I lost it at that stage and exclaimed rather too forcefully "Don't feed that creature!".

Anyhow, thankfully I have not had an unpleasant pheasant encounter again, but have spotted several pheasants who turn their evil eye towards me during my daily walk. I am of course maintaining eye contact and wondering "Is that him, and will he attack again?".

When male pheasants fight, they are so engrossed that they are oblivious to everything else. I recall a pair fighting on the castle drive. I had to stop my car, and I knew if I had not stopped I would simply have run both of them over.

Obviously, the pheasant was in this attack mode with me, and nothing would have deterred it. I suspect even if I had hit it really hard with the stick, it would not have stopped. Was it the yellow coat I was wearing i.e. a bit of a orangey pheasant colour? The only other explanation was that it was trying to mate with me, but I do not think his intentions were amorous. Some years back, a Spanish visitor to Balintore Castle got attacked by a pheasant a number of times. It was pretty serious. She was wearing a red jumper.

To capture the essence of something, one often plays the three words game. For a pheasant, these are beautiful, stupid and er, delicious. :-) They truly are the stupidest creatures and have the least road awareness of all: less than a baby bunny - and that is saying a lot. :-)

Amazingly enough, sheep though classically stupid, have pretty good road sense. They are not great at getting out of your way in the best direction, but they do at least try to get out of the way. Pheasants virtually stand in the middle of the single track roads round the castle saying "kill me now".

The "pheasant as terminator" illustration was the best I could do with an AI image generation engine (fodor.com) before my free trial ran out.

Great Hall Windows Installed and Building Big Turret!

Yesterday, Gavin and Gregor finished installing the new windows in the Great Hall. However, as I was rushing off to Dundee late afternoon, I did not have time to register the fact or indeed record the moment. However, I was able to take a photo today, and of course to put things in context, I have supplied a "before" photo from the 18th January.

before window installation: 18th January 2024

after window installation: 27th February 2024

Light coming in from the outside transforms the space so totally, that I have not come to terms with it yet.

In fact, in the "after" photo, you can see Gavin and Gregor working on the next project which is rebuilding the castle's biggest turret. Believe it or not, they are building it as an IKEA flat-pack, so it can be unscrewed, broken apart and then finally reassembled outdoors. The base ring has already been flat-packed and then reassembled as a test.