First part of story here
Second part of story here
So we booted the in-laws out of the house this morning so were then able to proceeded in shifting all of the stuff out of the lounge and move it into the dinning room (the room in parts I and II). This allowed us to start work on the lounge which is the room at the opposite end of the house and has a similar 1860ish wall.
A few hours later and I've managed to remove the render from one of the alcoves:
(click for larger version)
The wall appears to be in generally good nick though unfortunately there doesn't appear to be any mystery holes this time.
However, there is some very strange construction at the top of the alcove:
The wooden beams (originally covered in hardboard + plasterboard) support a layer of rubble + lime mortar approximately 150mm deep which then supports the floorboards of the room above.
The alcove at the other end of the house either never had or has lost this structure so you can see directly up to the floorboards. The ends of the floorboards are not now supported and flex rather well when you tread on them. (Something that will be fixed in due course.)
Now I can understand the need to support the ends of the floorboards and some wooden beams sounds like a good idea, however, why on earth is there a rubble layer between them?!? To me, it would have been a lot better idea just to have the floorboard supports directly underneath the boards.
Has anybody seen anything like this before?
Second part of story here
So we booted the in-laws out of the house this morning so were then able to proceeded in shifting all of the stuff out of the lounge and move it into the dinning room (the room in parts I and II). This allowed us to start work on the lounge which is the room at the opposite end of the house and has a similar 1860ish wall.
A few hours later and I've managed to remove the render from one of the alcoves:
(click for larger version)
The wall appears to be in generally good nick though unfortunately there doesn't appear to be any mystery holes this time.
However, there is some very strange construction at the top of the alcove:
The wooden beams (originally covered in hardboard + plasterboard) support a layer of rubble + lime mortar approximately 150mm deep which then supports the floorboards of the room above.
The alcove at the other end of the house either never had or has lost this structure so you can see directly up to the floorboards. The ends of the floorboards are not now supported and flex rather well when you tread on them. (Something that will be fixed in due course.)
Now I can understand the need to support the ends of the floorboards and some wooden beams sounds like a good idea, however, why on earth is there a rubble layer between them?!? To me, it would have been a lot better idea just to have the floorboard supports directly underneath the boards.
Has anybody seen anything like this before?