Plas Tirion Restoration

April 16th 2012

We have been given the dates from the Dendrochronology testing!

The north (right hand if facing) section of the house was dated as 1565, lots of clues that this was an earlier house adapted - fireplaces with no chimneys, blocked in doors and windows etc. The main part of the house, 1626, which ties in with the dated plasterwork. The old cruck building 1498 - so not the oldest house in Wales but still old enough to be very exciting and great to get an accurate date for when the houses were built.

Mid April 2012

James can be seen here top coating the ceilings, over the one coat of medium hemp on building boards. We have overhead lights at last, and the kitchen chimney breast and fireplace is finished in a final coat - everything looks much lighter.

'Helping' - all our weekends are spent working on the house, small jobs and lots of cleaning up which everyone can help with. The downstairs chimney was boarded over with a brick fireplace set into it. It had pink plaster skimmed over the ovolo moulded edges. This was all removed and the laths are now being replaced, it will be replastered with the ovolo moulding and a moulded sill run in.

Early April 2012

This small window appeared under the render on the north side next to the chimney breast. It seems to be either between floors or low down on the first floor. Could it be that there was a privy next to the warm chimney breast, or a window onto an old staircase that led up beside the chimney to the first floor when this north section was an older, simpler house?
So much done this month. The whole house is scaffolded for work to begin removing the cement render. We begin top-coating in places, which has lightened the rooms. The plumbing and electrics are well underway.

March 2012

When we were visited by the Dendro team they climbed up onto the first floor of the old cottage to reach the large cruck frame. We have never been up there because it looks a bit fragile, but it didnt stop them, and while they were up there they found stored a few sheets of leaded glass lights from the original windows. We have found various fragments of the glass under floorboards, but we now know that they were diamond not square, and quite a cloudy green colour - you could not have seen much through them. We hope to reuse these as a fixed light in the small single paned window that we uncovered in the kitchen - it still has its stanchion bar for supporting them.

There is an old bath in the house. In letters from a tenant to the estate in the 1920's a bath is listed as part of the assets of the farm to be bought by the next tenant.

We have started to lay the slates in the kichen, still some gaps to be filled as we need 40 sq/m. We have laid underfloor heating pipes in the bedding mortar, from the woodfired oven - hope it works, the slabs are quite thick!

Repairs to the wattle in the upstairs screen. We knocked off the topcoat that was loose and cracked and then used a fine hemp over the top of the original wattle and clay daub. The clay has tool marks, possibly some kind of pick, as a key for the top coat. 400 years old and still standing.

 

February 2012

We have just had confirmation of a 30% grant from CADW for the repair of the outside of Plas Tirion. As soon as we can scaffold the house we will make a start removing the cement render. This is the first step to seeing the house restored to its former modest splendour. Original style mullioned windows will go back, and the whole of the exterior including the chimneys will be lime pointed and limewashed.

BBC Wales pay us a visit, interest in Plas Tirion and our project here grows....

 
BBC Wales filmed us here for a news feature broadcast on February 3rd. We may have on our site, the oldest dated house in Wales. We will get the results of the denrdo testing next month, with a date for our cruck frame, and dates for the timbers in the main house. 1402 is the date to beat for the old timber framed house to be the oldest dated in Wales and we are interested to know whether the main house was built in the early 1600's as the plasterwork suggests, or even earlier.

January 2012

Dendrochronology study of timbers at Plas Tirion

We are lucky enough to have been included in a dendrochronology study being carried out in North Wales,' Dating Old Welsh Houses'. Richard Suggett from the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Wales was filmed by Huw Jenkins in a short film about Plas Tirion and its restoration. He looks at some of Plas Tirions most interesting features, including the ornate plaster work.

 
Dating old Welsh Houses is a community history project. Tree ring dating carried out by The Oxford Dendrochronology Laboratory, is being used to find out about the history and development of C16th and C17th houses in North West Wales. You can read more about the project by looking at their website, www.datingoldwelshhouses.co.uk

December 2011

 
We have removed a narrow boarded corridor which had split up the 'grand hall' This throws light on the panelling - the original doorways now blocked, set into an oak board and wattle screen, this was refined later with small field oak panelling. Some of this was removed and reused around the house, reappearing as doors and draft screens.

We have opened the blocked window at the back, got a big hole in the house now! You can see into the cupboard that is opposite it now, it was always too dark before. Hope we will get some morning sunshine through this window now.

November 2011

Welsh sheepwool insulation is pushed between the beams in the kitchen, with building boards fixed on top, ready for the first coat of plaster. We are planning to use a blend of coarse and medium hemp shiv mixed with lime putty.

October 2011

 
At last things are going back after all the stripping away, the back chimney is scaffolded, and the chimney shelter coated and limewashed, the first of the insulation (thermafleece) is pushed between the joists and building boards are fitted on top. Ned enjoyed the view from the top of the chimney, but had to photgraph it for me because I am afraid of heights and cant get up the 12 metre high scaffolding. Our children dont share the fear luckily and have both stood on top of the chimney to see how Father Christmas gets in.

We have cleared out the hall fire place and pulled down a section of lath and plaster ceiling that was falling off. It had unusually wide laths with very little space in between to form nibs. Underneath the original oak ceiling with chamfered joists was revealed as it would have been seen, the photo is a bit out of focus, but if you enlange it you can see how the whole ceiling would have looked - Plas Mawr in Conwy has similar ceilings - and also the top of the plaster motif that had been cut off by the plaster ceiling, with Robert and Katherine Wynnes initials intertwined. We have decided to apply for permission to remove all the lath and plaster ceiling to reveal the oak one, as it is in near perfect condition.

 
The first plaster goes on to the walls. This small window lets light into the kitchen, we will put leaded lights back here into this single fixed light, the rest of the windows will have slim double glazed units, the challenge is make the house as warm as possible without compromising on appearance and historical detail. We used a base coat of hydraulic lime mixed with hemp chiv, as an alternative to sand and lime. The hemp is quicker to use and has some insulation value. It is similar to the clay and straw plaster that we have found in places around the house.

 

September 2011

On 13th September we had a visit from The Big Green Limecreting Machine, a specially designed limecrete volumetric batch mixer. Myles Yallop from The Limecrete Company drove over to us from Norfolk, in the headwind of the tail of hurricane Katia. We had 70 sq/m of ground floors to limecrete. James has spent the last few weeks digging out the floor of the kitchen and hall, single-handedly shifting close to twenty tonnes of earth with a spade and barrow, ready for the insulation material.

We laid geotextile over the earth, then 200mm of recycled foamed glass (RFG) then a further membrane and 100mm of pumice as a lightweight aggregate mixed with NHL5. Myles and Ian had finished laying the limecrete by lunchtime the next day and headed back to Norfolk.

This is a real milestone for us in our project, a good boost to morale, and a hard job finished quickly and neatly in a day and a half. Look at www.limecrete.co.uk to learn more about Miles work.

The house is built against a steep hillside, and the rear ground floor walls and floors have probably always been damp. One of the first things that we did was to dig out the bank behind the house and lay drainage, as well as tapping the numerous springs that welled up. The stairs are at the rear of the house and we knew by the way the treads dipped that there was a problem.
What James and Sophie are looking at is a softwood structure laid directly onto (damp) banked up earth (full of broken glass and china). It was completely rotten, and it all had to come down.

August 2011

We have had one oak mullioned window fitted, and we will use this as a trial to make sure the metal casements work and look right. This window is part of a C19th extension, so the design of the mullions is simpler and distinct from the earlier openings. The earlier openings on the front of the house will have ovolo moulded mullions, like the one that we found blocked up.

We also found other old ovolo mullions recycled as props underneath the stairs. We will make a trial window of this older style to replace the half rotten one that was blocked up, this one will have hand carved mullions.

June 2011

We have at last been given permission to start work on Plas Tirion House.

After two years of planning and discussion, we have finally been given the go ahead to begin work on the restoration of Plas Tirion house. Dr Ian Brooks will be compiling an archaeological record and will be overseeing the works and recording any intersting finds.

The Natural Building Centre is housed in a range of traditional farm buildings at Plas Tirion (one barn dated 1837). The house itself is a Grade 2* listed, late C16th storeyed manor house. It has many fine surviving features, including original oak floorboards, C17th panelling and several heraldic plasterwork overmantles.

A programme of repair for the house has started that will take many years to complete, it is in a prominent position and its sympathetic on-going renovation will act as an example for all that we are promoting. The house, the site and the accompanying outbuildings will be repaired with a clear conservation ethic, respecting the history but using sustainability as a guiding principle.

As we are hoping to move in by Christmas, the initial work will be to upgrade the house, install heating, update electrics and remove some of the less important later additions in order to take the house back to something like its original layout. The external work will involve the removal of cement render and pointing on the front elevation, to be replaced with a flush lime pointing and limewash. The windows will be replaced with oak mullioned copies of the original where original openings exist, and a simpler oak frame of similar proportions, distinct from the first type, to be used in later openings.

 

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