November News
ROSEMOOR RESTORATION REPORT by Tony Nicholls - 30th November 2022
In contrast to recent weeks, we had a fine, dry day for our working party at Rosemoor.
In contrast to recent weeks, we had a fine, dry day for our working party at Rosemoor.
Lower basin viewed from the north end
Good progress was made on the ongoing restoration of the tucking mill. We have managed to re-build much of the damaged stonework on the north west corner of the building and this is now pretty much at what we envisage will be the finished level. All that remains to be done is to raise the level of the rest of the wall by another foot or so and this section will then be complete.
Rebuilding corner of tucking mill
We also succeeded – after a great deal of trial and error – in re-laying a large area of the concrete floor of the lower chamber of the mill building. As noted in last week’s report, this is a huge jig-saw puzzle - with the added complication of many missing pieces. Fortunately, one of our volunteers had the foresight to take a photo of the pieces when they were first ‘dry-laid’ and, by consulting this and with a certain amount of guesswork, we were able to make a reasonable stab at re-assembling the various fragments.
There is still much work to be done on the mill but it is really beginning to develop an identity and should – when ‘finished’ – give the public an insight into this important part of our industrial past. Working parties are held every Wednesday morning, meeting in the main car park at RHS Rosemoor, Torrington at 9.30am. Please contact Project Manager, Ian Harrison (tel.01237- 475707) for more information. |
West wall of tucking mill
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Re-laid concrete floor
General view of tucking mill
ROCK ON TOMMY! (With apologies to comedians Bobby Ball and Tommy Cannon)
Sea Lock report from Adrian Wills - 30th November 2022
Sea Lock report from Adrian Wills - 30th November 2022
Another dry day on Tuesday 29th November 2022 enabled Steve, Michael and me to make great headway on rebuilding the middle wharf wall at Sea Lock. Michael had a very busy morning keeping Steve and I supplied with mortar, as well as himself. Between filling the mixer and trundling barrow-loads of mortar across the very muddy and slippery site, he consumed a considerable amount of material filling a large void behind the three copers I had deposited on the wall a few days before. I had also previously brought over a pile of ‘ugly’ stones for back-filling, as well as some rather large facing stones so all was ready in place for some action at the start of the day. |
Steve spent time filling the gap between the bottom of the copers and the wall beneath with stone and mortar, before giving his attention to finally levelling the last coper. This proved to be very uncooperative since it kept wobbling on the spacers inserted underneath and sliding out of position on them when Steve tried to lever it up to the desired height. Eventually, with a little help from me, that problem was solved and he mortared it into place.
In the meantime I was working further along the wall using some of the large facing stones to raise its height. We were really making very good progress. Steve completed mortaring in the latest coper and then turned to raising the front of the wall alongside me. Only 3 more copers need to be laid to complete this section of wall and I had already cast the required number. However, the presence of a land-drain very close to the top of the wall where we are now working has dictated that I need to cast one more coper, but it will have to be thinner than the previous ones due to the position of the pipe. What a nuisance but there we are! |
Hopefully once this extra coper is cast, another day or two will see the completion of this particular project. Wow!
Incidentally, in my previous report I mentioned using my angle–driver to cut stone. That should have read ‘angle-grinder’ but never mind! Feel the quantity, not the quality(?)
A MOMENT'S RESPITE - Sea Lock report from Adrian Wills - 26th November 2022
Just by way of a change, yesterday, Friday 25th November 2022, was a dry day that enabled me (still Johnny No Mates!) to actually resume building at Sea Lock. After mixing up one batch of mortar in my nice, new and still shiny yellow mixer, I loaded a second one and left it to churn whilst I sorted through the pile of recently delivered stone, looking for some suitable for facing.
Just by way of a change, yesterday, Friday 25th November 2022, was a dry day that enabled me (still Johnny No Mates!) to actually resume building at Sea Lock. After mixing up one batch of mortar in my nice, new and still shiny yellow mixer, I loaded a second one and left it to churn whilst I sorted through the pile of recently delivered stone, looking for some suitable for facing.
Having found a couple of big stones with reasonable faces I then had to square them off a little with my big diamond-bladed angle-driver; a noisy and dusty affair. These and the mortar had then to be barrowed over to where they were going to be used. Whilst rebuilding the section of wall being worked on is progressing very quickly it means that transporting mortar and stone is having to be barrowed further and further along the site and what with the ground-surface being so wet and slippery this is tedious and tiring. It was my intention to continue today (Saturday 26th) but I have just reviewed the weather forecast on my computer. Heavy rain is predicted for the next few hours starting to fall in about half an hour. Gosh, there’s a surprise! |
ARE THE RESERVOIRS FULL YET? Sea Lock report from Adrian Wills - 24th November 2022
Work at Sea Lock has been severely hampered over the past 2 weeks by frequent, very heavy down-falls of rain. This has resulted in work planned with volunteers, Steve, Nick and Michael on the past two Tuesdays having to be cancelled. However, between showers I have managed to cast 4 more coping blocks, which is all that is required to complete the section of wall we have been working on, and dry-laid them in place.
Work at Sea Lock has been severely hampered over the past 2 weeks by frequent, very heavy down-falls of rain. This has resulted in work planned with volunteers, Steve, Nick and Michael on the past two Tuesdays having to be cancelled. However, between showers I have managed to cast 4 more coping blocks, which is all that is required to complete the section of wall we have been working on, and dry-laid them in place.
The Priestman crane is back in operation and seems to be driving easier than before Mike Chambers spent a great deal of time and effort to adjust the tracks. A big ‘thank you’ to him!
Using this machine has certainly makes lifting, manoeuvring and laying the large copers relatively easy.
Using this machine has certainly makes lifting, manoeuvring and laying the large copers relatively easy.
I am now hoping for a few dry hours over the next day or two to complete laying these copers and perhaps even building up some more of the missing facing. My computer, however, keeps telling me ‘heavy rain soon!’ Good oh!
At least there is only one more land-drain pipe to work around and it is only dribbling. Water from the others is absolutely gushing forth mightily!
At least there is only one more land-drain pipe to work around and it is only dribbling. Water from the others is absolutely gushing forth mightily!
ROSEMOOR RESTORATION REPORT by Tony Nicholls - 23rd November 2022
After several weeks of heavy rain, working conditions at the Rosemoor site have become distinctly soggy. The Torridge is turbulent and in full spate and, if this rain continues, it is quite possible that it will overtop it banks near the canal. On the plus side, the canal itself is now virtually full with the water level just an inch or so below the lip of the lower spillway. The photos of the upper and lower basin show how the water had risen in recent weeks. (The ladder against the wall of the upper basin is for access to our new underwater viewing chamber….!)
After several weeks of heavy rain, working conditions at the Rosemoor site have become distinctly soggy. The Torridge is turbulent and in full spate and, if this rain continues, it is quite possible that it will overtop it banks near the canal. On the plus side, the canal itself is now virtually full with the water level just an inch or so below the lip of the lower spillway. The photos of the upper and lower basin show how the water had risen in recent weeks. (The ladder against the wall of the upper basin is for access to our new underwater viewing chamber….!)
A full lower basin
Upper basin
We are continuing with our restoration of the tucking mill, concentrating on the rebuild of the rear wall and re-laying the broken concrete floor in the lower chamber. Last week, the team had a major triumph in finally removing the remains of ‘The Beast’, the giant tree stump growing through the floor of the building. With this obstacle gone, we were able to make good progress on reconstruction of the rear wall. We intend to create an outline here of the old hearth which we believe was located in this section.
Rebuild of rear wall of mill
With the foundations of the west wall of the mill now largely complete, we turned our attention to the tricky task of re-laying the fragments of the concrete floor. As noted previously, this resembles a giant jig-saw puzzle. Whilst it is possible to marry up some fragments, other pieces are missing which makes the task quite a challenge. A further difficulty is that the floor of the building has subsided in the centre creating a concave ‘bowl’. This means that we are having to relay the floor on an upward slope to the point where it would have originally abutted the west wall. It looks a bit odd but we are trying to retain the integrity of the building as far as possible. The photo shows the puzzle in progress.
Assembling the floor
Working parties are held every Wednesday morning, meeting in the main car park at RHS Rosemoor, Torrington at 9.30am. Please contact Project Manager, Ian Harrison (tel.01237- 475707) for more information.
ROSEMOOR RESTORATION REPORT by Ian Harrison - 16th November 2022
Despite being a bit down on numbers this week we carried out more work on the tucking mill including the tricky removal of a large tree root that had built itself into the far wall and the "invisible" repair of the floor where a tree had been growing straight through.
Despite being a bit down on numbers this week we carried out more work on the tucking mill including the tricky removal of a large tree root that had built itself into the far wall and the "invisible" repair of the floor where a tree had been growing straight through.
For some weeks one of the team has been digging between the tucking mill and the canal where we think that there was some sort of simple smelting furnace. There is not too much to see other than an orange coloured depression but there is loads of iron rich clinker, some pieces of iron and fused glass. What is probably the lifting lug from a smelting vessel found a few weeks ago reinforces our theory.
READY TO ROCK AND ROLL and raring to go! Sea Lock report from Adrian Wills - 15th November 2022
Progress at Sea Lock has been rather spasmodic over the past couple of weeks due to a number of delaying factors. Inclement weather being the major culprit but lack of suitable building stone also contributed to the situation. Just to really confound matters the cement mixer decided that it had had enough and shredded the drive belt.
The mixer had worked hard for quite some time and was basically worn out. Thanks to the funds granted from the AIA to the restoration of Sea Lock I was able to purchase a new mixer which duly arrived on Monday morning in a large cardboard box on a pallet.
Progress at Sea Lock has been rather spasmodic over the past couple of weeks due to a number of delaying factors. Inclement weather being the major culprit but lack of suitable building stone also contributed to the situation. Just to really confound matters the cement mixer decided that it had had enough and shredded the drive belt.
The mixer had worked hard for quite some time and was basically worn out. Thanks to the funds granted from the AIA to the restoration of Sea Lock I was able to purchase a new mixer which duly arrived on Monday morning in a large cardboard box on a pallet.
The instruction manual for assembling the mixer was written in English (hooray!) but never-the-less half of it didn’t make much sense. The diagrams were so small as to be virtually useless. By mid-afternoon I had managed to get all the support frame together but couldn’t work out how to attach the drum to it without taking off a pre-assembled piece.
I got my next-door neighbour involved. He is a retired civil engineer so he would surely know what to do! Quite some time passed while he and I pondered the instructions and looked at various bits of mixer. Eventually he agreed with me that the pre-assembled piece had to be taken apart.
From that point on everything more or less went to plan and the mixer was finally ready to be put to work but he and I had had enough for the day. Spanners and other tools were put away and we returned to our respective homes.
The new mixer is a bright, shiny yellow. I wonder how long that will last? My old one was battle-ship grey even before becoming coated in dried-on mortar. All I want now is a few days of dry weather although that might not help the situation regarding our reservoirs
I got my next-door neighbour involved. He is a retired civil engineer so he would surely know what to do! Quite some time passed while he and I pondered the instructions and looked at various bits of mixer. Eventually he agreed with me that the pre-assembled piece had to be taken apart.
From that point on everything more or less went to plan and the mixer was finally ready to be put to work but he and I had had enough for the day. Spanners and other tools were put away and we returned to our respective homes.
The new mixer is a bright, shiny yellow. I wonder how long that will last? My old one was battle-ship grey even before becoming coated in dried-on mortar. All I want now is a few days of dry weather although that might not help the situation regarding our reservoirs
Apropos of nothing, it has been very nice to see evidence of a lot of otter activity in the lock chamber over the past couple of days.
ROSEMOOR RESTORATION REPORT by Tony Nicholls - 9th November 2022
A good volunteer turn out this week enabled us to carry out work on several areas of the tucking mill which remains the main focus of our present activity. We had to put up with intermittent showers during the morning but fortunately these were short-lived and did not impede our work.
A good volunteer turn out this week enabled us to carry out work on several areas of the tucking mill which remains the main focus of our present activity. We had to put up with intermittent showers during the morning but fortunately these were short-lived and did not impede our work.
Rebuilding tucking mill wall
We laid another course of stone on the rear wall of the mill which is taking shape nicely and should soon be raised to its finished height. We also started to consider the task of repairing the concrete floor of the lower chamber which has been badly broken up as a result of subsidence. After a lengthy debate about how we should best restore this, it was decided that we would remove the underlying earth and attempt to relay the broken fragments. This is an exercise which calls for competent jigsaw puzzle specialists! Two members of the team proved that they had the required skills and made a good start on assembling the initial pieces. Further work was carried out on the southern wall of the mill which was badly damaged by tree growth. We have rebuilt the south eastern corner of the wall and are now turning our attention to the interesting section where we believe there was originally a hearth. We would like to give an indication of how this might have looked as it is an important feature. Unfortunately, the remains of stump of ‘The Beast’ are an unwelcome obstruction which we ideally need to remove to enable us to properly restore this part of the building. Working parties are held every Wednesday morning, meeting in the main car park at RHS Rosemoor, Torrington at 9.30am. Please contact Project Manager, Ian Harrison (tel.01237- 475707) for more information. |
Work in progress on tucking mill wall
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Repairs to south east corner of mill
IT NEVER RAINS, IT ONLY POURS! - Sea Lock report from Adrian Wills
10th November 2022 On Tuesday morning (01.11.22) Steve ‘phoned me to ask if I was planning to work at Sea Lock that day. I had already had my early-morning walk to the site and said that although the sky was a little overcast I would. Commenting that the sky over my direction looking from his home was quite dark but he would join me within half an hour. A very short time after me putting the ‘phone down it began to rain heavily. I ‘phoned Steve back only to be told by his wife that he had just left, riding his big Can-Am motor trike. He was slightly wet by the time he arrived at my house! By then though rain had stopped falling so we decided to go to the site and see what we could usefully do. We set about lifting and moving one of the two remaining, stocked copers using the Kubota tractor which was not simple because one of its front tyres was low in air pressure, making steering difficult, Later in the day we inflated them all to the correct pressures. We laid the coper on the wall, lined it up with the others, levelled it and began the process of mortaring it into place. Steve had begun to use the first load of mortar whilst I prepared a second batch and had emptied it into a wheel barrow when the rain began to fall again with a vengeance. This then changed to hail and what massive stones they were, the size of garden peas! By the time the shower abated the mortar had turned to liquid and was useless for building with. We covered over the work we had done with plastic sheeting, cleaned our tools, had an early lunch and called it a day. At least we had managed to set in place another coping block. Have to cast several more now. |
Last Tuesday (08.11.22) I arranged with Steve to take my Landrover and trailer to the nearest quarry to our site to fetch some new stone. I had been told by the quarry operator that there was plenty available for me. However when we got there we were told that the pile of selected facing stone was already allocated to another customer but there was still a huge quantity of freshly dug stone available. After some deliberation it was decided that we would buy a 10 ton load of this and have it delivered later in the morning. |
Steve and I returned to the site and began mixing a batch of mortar when the mixer stopped! The drive belt had broken and I didn’t have a replacement. Whilst we pondered about this problem the lorry from the quarry arrived but couldn’t get all the way down the drive due to 2 large over-hanging branches. My chainsaw has not been very reliable recently being very difficult to start so we had to resort to a hand saw. The branches were eventually cut and removed and the lorry was able to continue to the bottom of the drive and deposit its load. As was expected however the load contained a considerable amount of stone which is unsuitable for our needs at present which is annoying.
We then emptied the partly mixed load of mortar from the dead mixer and finished mixing it by hand. I had forgotten how much hard work is involved in mixing a large quantity of mortar manually. We used it up on the wall, stopped for lunch, mixed a second batch by hand, used that up and packed up for the day. At least we hadn’t got wet despite experiencing one small shower during the day.
Due to the number of heavy rainfalls recently the colour of the water flowing through the lock chamber over the past couple of days has been interesting. At times it looked more like liquid milk chocolate than fresh water.
In the meantime, a new mixer has now been ordered; the old one had certainly had its day, but until the replacement one arrives there will be no more building and equally no more casting ‘coping stone’ blocks.
We then emptied the partly mixed load of mortar from the dead mixer and finished mixing it by hand. I had forgotten how much hard work is involved in mixing a large quantity of mortar manually. We used it up on the wall, stopped for lunch, mixed a second batch by hand, used that up and packed up for the day. At least we hadn’t got wet despite experiencing one small shower during the day.
Due to the number of heavy rainfalls recently the colour of the water flowing through the lock chamber over the past couple of days has been interesting. At times it looked more like liquid milk chocolate than fresh water.
In the meantime, a new mixer has now been ordered; the old one had certainly had its day, but until the replacement one arrives there will be no more building and equally no more casting ‘coping stone’ blocks.
ROSEMOOR RESTORATION REPORT by Tony Nicholls with photos by Michael Elliott - 2nd November 2022
We were back at Rosemoor this week to continue with our restoration of the tucking mill. Thankfully, we had a reasonably dry day with the forecast rain holding off until lunchtime. The canal gods were clearly smiling on us!
We are gradually repairing and rebuilding the perimeter walls of the mill to give a clear indication of how the building would have originally looked. The west wall needs to be raised by a further two to three feet to bring this up to a level with the internal walls. Fortunately, we have a good stock of decent stone which we unearthed during the original excavation of the site so we hope to progress this work fairly quickly. A lot of painstaking work was also done to keep the site clear of weeds (still growing vigorously!) and fallen Autumn leaves. The building is really starting to take shape now and it is hard to believe that four years ago it was buried under tons of earth.
We were back at Rosemoor this week to continue with our restoration of the tucking mill. Thankfully, we had a reasonably dry day with the forecast rain holding off until lunchtime. The canal gods were clearly smiling on us!
We are gradually repairing and rebuilding the perimeter walls of the mill to give a clear indication of how the building would have originally looked. The west wall needs to be raised by a further two to three feet to bring this up to a level with the internal walls. Fortunately, we have a good stock of decent stone which we unearthed during the original excavation of the site so we hope to progress this work fairly quickly. A lot of painstaking work was also done to keep the site clear of weeds (still growing vigorously!) and fallen Autumn leaves. The building is really starting to take shape now and it is hard to believe that four years ago it was buried under tons of earth.
Rebuilding foundations of wall
Rebuilding corner of tucking mill
One interesting find was the possible remains of what we think might have been a cast iron crucible. This was discovered after many months of laborious digging in an area at the top of the mill adjacent to the towpath. We have previously found extensive deposits of clinker-like material here so this new evidence seems to support our theory that this area was used for smelting or casting processes in the past. Another intriguing artefact to add to our growing collection!
Possible remains of crucible
Lime kiln and lower basin in water
Working parties are held every Wednesday morning, meeting in the main car park at RHS Rosemoor, Torrington at 9.30am. Please contact Project Manager, Ian Harrison (tel.01237- 475707) for more information.