Please help us get in and out of this porch

[Jon Maine]

Why worry about miscreants when you have a cat that large?

 

[Cloudscape]

Especially a cat that just consists of a disembodied green glowing head. :shock:

Is it wise, if you're worried about security, to show everyone what the current security arrangements are? I am sympathetic (I used to live in a none-too-posh part of Manchester, so I know how these things can worry you). I know PPUK seems like a private chat, but it's open to the whole world to read (anytime - now or in the future), including the townspeople you mention.

 

[Jon Maine]

So are they real diminishing coursed stone slates on the roof?

Uh? Sorry Jon, you got a bit technical there for my (very limited) understanding of rooves.

basically, stone tiles larger near the eaves and diminishing in size and spacing to the apex of the roof.

 

[Schoolmarm]

They look like slate to me.

 

[Jon Maine]

Agreed, definately slate, couldn't quite see the thickness so unsure if they are thicker stone slates or another regional variation.

It does look like they are smaller at the apex, but that may just be the perspective.

 

[Gareth Hughes]

Probably Swithland slate from the Charnwood Forest in Leicestershire - a strange geological anomaly that looks like a few square miles of Dartmoor dropped into the rolling pastorality of the East Midlands.
http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/591330
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Bradgate_park_rocks.jpg

 

[JoceAndChris]

Yes that's right Gareth, interesting to know more about where they came from too.
Don't think there's any diminishing going on, it's just the photo.
I'm very confused about this roof, but that's for another thread.

Wow, I definitely want to pay a visit to that place in your photo.

 

[Jon Maine]

So it is a bit chunkier like Delabole?

 

[JoceAndChris]

Uh?

 

[Jon Maine]

Delabole being a fairly thick slate from Cornwall, although there are others it is the one that came to mind.

 

[Gareth Hughes]

Yes that's right Gareth, interesting to know more about where they came from too.
Don't think there's any diminishing going on, it's just the photo.
I'm very confused about this roof, but that's for another thread.

It is a bit difficult to tell from the photo, but I think they are diminished courses - that would be normal as you're (almost) on a blurred boundary between Swithland slate and Collyweston limestone slates which are almost always laid in diminishing courses (look at the roofs of Stamford, where they also went in for Mansard roofs in a bigger way than anywhere else in England).

Jon - I'm not sure of the geological background (except that Charnwood is very weird considering where it is), but visually the slate from there is certainly more Delabole than Blaenau Ffestiniog. It also makes beautiful gravestones.

 

[JoceAndChris]

Is it wise, if you're worried about security, to show everyone what the current security arrangements are? I am sympathetic (I used to live in a none-too-posh part of Manchester, so I know how these things can worry you). I know PPUK seems like a private chat, but it's open to the whole world to read (anytime - now or in the future), including the townspeople you mention.

Well, I've woken up worrying about this and come here and seen your post. You may have noticed that my posts often hacve to exist in a state a bit like Hitler's Germany: they get quietly shuffled off the scene. So I probably will edit all the juicy bits out of this thread. But, seriously, is there a thief patient enough to pick his way through all my twitterings, figure out my address, make an effort to get here, to steal my tapestry or pots of lime mortar? I doubt it. If there are any thieves reading this, you'd be better to go on a course to learn how to lime mortar-far more profitable!

 

[Jon Maine]

I see what you mean about the gravestones

http://www.flickr.com/photos/40635353@N00/sets/72157603673252082/

 

[Jon Maine]

Is it wise, if you're worried about security, to show everyone what the current security arrangements are? I am sympathetic (I used to live in a none-too-posh part of Manchester, so I know how these things can worry you). I know PPUK seems like a private chat, but it's open to the whole world to read (anytime - now or in the future), including the townspeople you mention.

Well, I've woken up worrying about this and come here and seen your post. You may have noticed that my posts often hacve to exist in a state a bit like Hitler's Germany: they get quietly shuffled off the scene. So I probably will edit all the juicy bits out of this thread. But, seriously, is there a thief patient enough to pick his way through all my twitterings, figure out my address, make an effort to get here, to steal my tapestry or pots of lime mortar? I doubt it. If there are any thieves reading this, you'd be better to go on a course to learn how to lime mortar-far more profitable!

You forgot the maids uniform :lol:

 

[JoceAndChris]

Thanks Gareth, it's so lovely to have an expert thinking about my roof in the middle of the night.

Like lots with this house, the previous owner tried to recreate what he found so he re-laid the roof according to the design that was there, he said, using the original slate tiles. But then a heritage roofer came from Stamford and said the roof was a fake, the tiles weren't original, and that he would put on something altogether more appropriate, which was a dark purply blue. He also said he'd sell my slate tiles for 4k. Id on't plan on touching the roof just yet. (though it leaks. )

Yes, Jon , I'd better get rid of that maid's uniform hadn't I?

Gosh those gravestones are beautiful, aren't they?

 

[Gareth Hughes]

I see what you mean about the gravestones

http://www.flickr.com/photos/40635353@N00/sets/72157603673252082/

The Swithland / Charnwood area is one of my favourite geographical anomalies in the UK - well worth turning off the M1 at Leicester to visit a tiny pocket of the Westcountry where all logic says it shouldn't be. Another is Woodhall Spa - Bournemouth in the Lincolnshire Fens, as I'm sure Biff will testify. It's so delightfully odd to find yourself somewhere that doesn't look anything like what you've just been driving through for the last couple of hours.

Joce - purple slate is Welsh. Great stuff, but not where you are (alas, I don't think Swithland is still available, but it should be salvageable - live with the buckets for the moment) As for the gravestones - pop down the hill and have a look in St W's churchyard - they've got a few. And marvel at the durability too.

 

[Jon Maine]

I think there is a resin bound slate dust composite available, not sure about cost or the product itself.

http://www.repstone.com/swithland-slates.php

 

[Gareth Hughes]

I see what you mean about the gravestones

http://www.flickr.com/photos/40635353@N00/sets/72157603673252082/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/40635353@N00/2222771449/in/set-72157603673252082/

Completely exquisite. Some poor, forgotten craftsman did that nearly 300 years ago; but look at the freshness, and inventiveness, of it - and it's far from being unusual with that material and purpose.

 

[JoceAndChris]

pop down the hill and have a look in St W's churchyard - they've got a few. And marvel at the durability too.

Well you haven't forgotten that craftsman and I look at those gravestones nearly every day. That graveyard's getting closer and closer; I wish people would just stop dying!

I will certainly visit the places you mention as soon as pass driving test (30 April!), how fascinating to have this on my doorstep.

As for the roof, it's not as bad as requiring buckets so can live with it. There are plenty of tiles lying about, when previous owner completed the job he had tons left over. Now I'd have worried about that if it had been me. I'm sure that Stamford roofer thought he was right, how do you account for it? It's a great relief we didn't come here with any money-think of the damage we might have done! Even worse than the cat shaped holes!

Thanks for much-needed advice and information, and the opportunity to chat about gravestones in the middle of the night without having to go to a terrible Gothic club.

 

[Gareth Hughes]

pop down the hill and have a look in St W's churchyard - they've got a few. And marvel at the durability too.

Well you haven't forgotten that craftsman and I look at those gravestones nearly every day. That graveyard's getting closer and closer; I wish people would just stop dying!

I will certainly visit the places you mention as soon as pass driving test (30 April!), how fascinating to have this on my doorstep.

As for the roof, it's not as bad as requiring buckets so can live with it. There are plenty of tiles lying about, when previous owner completed the job he had tons left over. Now I'd have worried about that if it had been me. I'm sure that Stamford roofer thought he was right, how do you account for it? It's a great relief we didn't come here with any money-think of the damage we might have done! Even worse than the cat shaped holes!

Thanks for much-needed advice and information, and the opportunity to chat about gravestones in the middle of the night without having to go to a terrible Gothic club.

I do wonder where the previous ownser got "tons" from as the real thing is rare as hen's teeth now (glad to have been taken in, possibly, by a photo of a fake). Stamford rofer may have had a queue of clients as long as your arm all gagging for Swithland - and if he was going to pay 4k for them, they won't have been glue and dust substitutes.

Don't worry about the cat hole - it's quirky, not terribly damaging and in 200 years' time it'll be a talking point ("Oh yes, the house used to belong to a mad old bat who had a thousand huge cats and never learnt to drive. She bricked herself in, you know, because she couldn't find all the door keys" :twisted: Gothic? ha! you don't know the half of it. I'm off to read M R James)