Progress on Fordhall's Renovation



Fordhall Farm Frost Dec 2010



Well what a winter already. Apologies for not keeping the blog as regularly updated over the Christmas period. It was extremely frantic in the run up to Christmas with everything taking longer in the frost and almost 400 turkeys and gammons to prepare ready for everyone's Christmas dinners. As Christmas day quickly came upon us, we took the opportunity at Fordhall Farm to rest for a few days and enjoy the beauty of Fordhall at this time of year - although Ben slept for most of Christmas Day!

2010 has been a very busy year with many milestones achieved, not least the successful appeal to raise £100,000 towards the renovation of the Old Dairy and the successful grant funding from Advantage West Midlands. Both of which we could not have achieved without your continued support for the project - thank you from the bottom of our hearts. 2011 will now see the fruits of our labour.

So new the New Year begins. Work on our Old Dairy building did take a small turn for the worse before Christmas, but we are now definately back on track and amazingly still on schedule. Due to the unstable nature of our old barn, three walls collapsed just before Christmas. It was a real shame that more of the existing building was lost, however Shingler will ensure that they are erected straighter than they began! Additional scaffolding was erected during the winter period to support the remaining walls and we were grateful that the winds remained low.



Our Old Dairy loses some walls!



All whole bricks from the walls were cleaned and stacked ready to re-erect the wall in the New Year. The biggest drawback to this incident is that our outer walls are built with old bricks and traditional lime mortars, which need the warmer temperatures to work. We will now have to keep our fingers crossed more than ever, that we get some warmer spells over the next few weeks.



Shingler construction soon move forward with rebuilding the internal walls in recycled block whilst additional scaffolding supports the existing walls.



To enable the builders to continue work during the cold weather and to facilitate the incorporation of a damp proof membrane through the back walls of the Old Dairy, Shingler have built the first 1600mm of wall in 80% recycled block work.



The damp proof membrane goes in Fordhall's Old Dairy Building and final touches are made before the concrete is laid.



The result is that progress this week has been quick and already they are preparing for the base layer of concrete to the building that will provide the support so desperately needed for the remaining walls.

Fordhalls new facilities have been generously part funded by Advantage West Midlands