New beginnings (maybe)

Spring is steaming ahead full tilt here, I was out checking on our cattle this morning and couldn’t resist a few photos… Kind of made me think maybe I ought to share them too.

The bluebells in the woods were looking fantastic.

The cattle were happily chewing the cud under a tree and in the orchard the lambs were causing mischief again.

The speckled wood building is starting to season and settle into the landscape as the wood mellows and ages.

We recently built some new veg beds beside it to grow useful plants in. The current bushes and herb plants are settling in well. We even found an old kettle to grow some thyme in.

It was nice to think of sharing some pictures again, maybe there will be some more news from here soon.

Weaving on the gallery

The woven barrier at the edge of the gallery in the Speckled Wood building was completed last week. The southern end of the building is open all the way up to the eaves. The other end of the building has a first floor where two of the bedrooms are, to get to the bedrooms the stairs lead up onto a gallery which looks out over the open end of the building. We had to create a barrier at the edge of the gallery so it was a safe space, there had been a few ideas about how to do this using the locally produced materials we had to hand. In the end we decided to use some of our hand cleaved chestnut laths. Most of the laths are going to hidden under our earth plaster, so having some on display fealt like the right thing to do.

One sharp whack with the mallet on a nice sharp chisel was the quickest way of cutting them to length.

They were then woven into position.

Piece by piece they built up to make a woven panel, not dissimilar to weaving a hurdle in the coppice. It took a little bit of head scratching to get the weave to work in a pleasing pattern on the spindles, due to the laths being much shorter than the width of the gallery. But I think it went ok in the end.

What I really like is that they create a solid barrier, but because of the way they are woven they also let the light shine through. When the sun shone in through the big glazed sections in the gable end it created some really pretty patterns across the floor and walls.

We had another working holiday on the building project last week as well. The guys did a fantastic job on lathing partition walls, earth plastering and painting, you could really see the progress being made. Thanks very much to all of you.

 

Finishing off the straw bale walls

The straw bale walls were being finished off towards the end of last week.

The feel of the building has changed dramatically with the appearance of its walls, the internal spaces are becoming clear, and you start to get a idea of what it will be like to live in.

Once the bales get to the top of the walls the last row of bale spikes has to be driven in. The membrane and sheeps wool insulation was folded back so that the spikes could be driven in from above.

The spikes hold the wall together, but it will not feel completely solid until it has its protective coating of lime plaster.

The two sides of a straw bale have very different textures, this is because of the action of the baler, on one side (the outside of our building) the straw is folded and on the other (the inside of the building) the straw is chopped. Our lime plaster will adhere much better to the chopped side. This is why the outside of the building has a layer of wire mesh against the bales, it will help the plaster stick properly. The photo below was taken prior to the mesh being attached and cut around the window frame.

On the inside the bales have been shaped around the windows and doors, this allows more light in as well as creating a sculptured feel to the openings. The windows will all have big wooden interior window seats so you will be able to sit and look out at the view.

To start with the bales around the openings all looked distinctly hairy.

But after they were trimmed up and the curved reveals were cut out they started to give more of an idea of what they will eventually look like.

As you can see from the wire to the side of the door the first fix electrics has been going in as well.

The straw bales are here

The straw bales for our walls started to arrive on site this week. We don’t have any National Trust arable land on this estate, but we managed to get our straw from the farm next door, so it hasn’t come far.

Straw bales have fantastic insulation properties, and if used in the right way, make an economical and very environmentally freindly walling material. They also go up satisfyingly quickly.

Fisrt of all a bale ladder was built all the way around our new oak floor at the outside edge of the building. You should also be able to see how the lovely new floorboards have been protected with a corrugated black plastic cover, just to make sure they aren’t damaged during the rest of the build.

The bale ladder is made of Black Down pine, it keeps the bales off the floor, each of the gaps in the ladder was filled with sheepswool insulation, and then the bales go on top.

A metal bale spike is attached to each “rung” of the ladder to secure the first course of bales.

After that it is a bit like massive lego as the layers of bales are built up. Each bale is held in place with two wooden bale spikes which are hammered through it into the bales below, this keeps the whole wall really sturdy and solid.

The bale spikes are made out of coppiced sweet chestnut, we have been lucky to have the help of another working holiday this week, amongst lots of other jobs the volunteers were working up in one of our coppices cutting the spikes for us.

On the outside of the building the bales will either be lime rendered (if they are protected beneath a verandah) or have a cladding of oak boards. Where the oak boards are going a frame of studwork is being built. You can see it in the picture below, you can also see where the floor is starting to be created for the link building which will connect Speckled Wood to Hunter Basecamp. This link building is where our biomass boiler will be going (quite excited about that!).

On the other walls where the render will go a chicken wire mesh has been constructed against the straw, this will help hold the render in place, it did look like some sort of strange fight club cage when it was being built, but none of it will be visible in the finished structure.

Everyone here has been working really hard again this week, and the results are plain on site, the build is motoring forward at the moment, its been fascinating seeing so many different parts of the structure coming together, I’ve been interested in straw bale use in construction for a long time, and have really enjoyed seeing ours starting to go into place.

Swan Barn Farm Green Woodworking Day

This took place yesterday, thanks a lot to everyone who came, we hope you had a good time.

There were displays of pole lath turning, broom making, shingle making, lath making and charcoal burning as well as refreshments, a bouncy castle and story telling for the kids. We also had a display of our sawmill and machinery. It was a chance for people to see the new building, and ask us questions about it. There was a steady stream of people, and a really nice atmosphere.

The craft displays were especially popular, with people learning about the many skills required to work wood, and some of the uses wood can be put to.

Some of my sheep and chickens were pressed into service as part of the display, not sure they are show quality, but the chickens clearly didn’t mind as by the end of the day they had layed 5 eggs.

After everyone had drifted away we shared a few bottles of cider, and Mark got out his guitar to play a few tunes, a nice relaxing end to a pretty busy day.

Look out for our apple pressing and cider making day coming later in the year, I think that will be a good one too.

 

A week is a long time.

Well, it seems to be at Swan Barn Farm at the moment anyway, in the last week things have really moved on with the building.

The scaffolding has really changed the appearance of the structure.

It allows access to the roof, which is where work is going to be focused over the coming weeks. The first job on this front has been to get the wallplates and some of the wind braces in position.

The Wallplates sit on top of the vertical jowel posts and will support the outer end of the rafters. They are made out of the long lengths of larch we fetched from Valewood earlier in the year. Getting them here was a real challenge, and a bit of an adventure, so seeing them going into their finished position in the building is really exciting.

The joints in it started to be cut while it was in the field next door.

It was then lifted into position for final fettling. The telehandler lifted it onto the roof, from where it could be raised and lowered using metal tripods with a block and tackle.

The windbraces are the short 45 degree pieces, there will be a number of them throughout the build, they are designed to stop the building racking, or twisting, in the wind.

Once all the mortice and tennons had been finished and it was all lined up it was dropped into position.

A maul (the big rubber hammer) tapped the wallplate down into its final position.

Work has also been continuing on the glazed gable end frame.

The rebates have been cut in it so that it will be ready for glass to be fitted once it is in position. We are hopeing it is going to turn out to be one of the real highlights of the finished structure.

We are past the 7000 mark now on the shingle counter, great progress (still another 8000 or so to do though!) and perfect timing as it should mean we will have enough to shingle one side of the roof on time. I am really looking forward to seeing the roof taking shape.

Raising the Frames

Yesterday was the day of the frame raise for the new building, and what a day it was.

Everyone was up an about early, one of the first jobs for the day was to make a wreath, we wanted it to go up on the frames for good luck. I went out on to Black Down to find a pretty special tree I know. Its a Rowan, one of the largest on the hill, Rowans are thought by some to bring luck, which certainly couldn’t do any harm.

I took what we needed, said thank you, and left a small present in return.

We added in some hawthorn and wild rose flowers from the hedgerows here at Swan Barn Farm, and then it was hung on the first frame.

Ben led the raise, the Black Down Countryside team and Roundwood Timber Framing Company team gathered together for a safety breifing and a run through of the plan. Then something rather special happened. You may not believe me, but its true, and it set the theme for the day. Some time ago we decided to name the building Speckled Wood after the pretty little woodland butterfly. As we were waiting to start a Speckled Wood butterfly flew in and landed on a mallet, we could hardly believe it, in front of the whole frame raise team it then took off, flew into the site and landed on top of one of the frames before it took off once more and dissapeared. It was just that sort of day.

The ridge pole was brought in to the site and settled in the top of the first frame, and then the raise began.

There were four frames to raise, they were pulled up using a hand winch which was anchored to one of our tractors which we had parked at the end of the site.

The first frame reached up into the sky and dragged the ridge pole up with it.

We then used the telehandler to hold the ridge pole up and out of the way whilst the other frames were being winched into position.

We knew before we started that the first two frames were going to be pretty tricky, getting them in the right place before any of the rest of the structure is in place to brace things was really quite difficult. But the inevitable problems that came up were dealt with calmly and the raise proceeded as palnned. Quite a few people had shown up to watch from the field next door, which was really nice, if you came along I hope you enjoyed it.

As frame two came up there was a fair bit of manouvering of the ridge pole that had to be done to ensure it didnt push against the ridge and knock the first frame out of position. We had a cloudbirst of rain at this point as well, and everything was all rather tense. In the end though everything slotted in to place and it was on to frame three.

Things were gradually starting to get a bit easier, as the frames were braced together everything was becoming more stable, and the tension was starting to lift. Frame three was our target before stopping for lunch, which was sometime after 3 oclock !

Once this frame was in position we could finally remove the telhandler, which had been supporting the ridge pole all day. That meant the last frame came up without any noise from machinery, you could hear the birds singing in the woods as the frame was winched upright.

The last frame slotted into position and deep breaths were drawn all round. It looks pretty impressive now as you come down the lane to the farm, if you get chance to come and have a look its well worth it.

There is clearly a long way to go before it becomes a building, but yesterday was a very proud day. So many people have worked so hard to get us this far, I think the frame is a tribute to all of them.

By the time we were finished and tidied up it had been a  long day. Fortunately we had a batch of Swan Barn Farm cider chilling in the fridge. We fired up the bbq in front of the basecamp and settled in to toast the successes of the day.

As you can imagine we fealt in a pretty celebratory mood, and the party went on well in to the early hours.

The Framing Bed

Ben Law’s team have now arrived on site in order to start on the main phase of construction of our new building. One of the first jobs that needs to be done is to build a framing bed.

Rudy, Adam and Nick have been building it today in what is ordinarily the back garden of the basecamp. The framing bed is where the timbers that will make up the main A frames of the structure are fitted together and assembled prior to the frame being raised. The timbers it’s made of provide fixed points that can be measured from to ensure that when the frame is eventually raised all of the timbers will align correctly.

The uprights are made out of offcuts of sweet chestnut from the coppice, and the cross members are made out of the douglas fir we felled earlier in the year. When the bed is dismantled the douglas fir will be reused as roof rafters.

We have been busy milling as many rafters as possible, both for the framing bed and to start to build up a stock of them for the roof. In the picture above you can see how we have milled a square out of the middle of a log, 14 x 2 inch boards are being cut off this, which will then be cut in half to make 7 x 2 inch rafters. Its quite exciting to think ahead to the time when they will be going on to the roof.

Shed no more

The old shed which is being removed to make way for the new Speckled Wood building has been demolished this week.

Its amazing quite how much junk a succession of Wardens and Volunteers can manage to fit in one shed if they are given enough time, and it took a while to empty it.

The volunteer tools have been relocated and the rest of the stuff has either been relocated, recycled or chucked. With the weather being so kind it fealt like extreme spring cleaning.

The next thing to go was the roof. It was made of asbestos, so had to be dealt with by a specialist contractor.

The wooden structure was knocked down in no time at all and then it was on to dealing with the concrete. Environmentally speaking concrete is pretty terrible stuff, with massive carbon costs in its production, there is quite a bit of the stuff in the old shed, and our plan is to recycle it.

The first stage was using a minidigger with a pneumatic breaker to reduce it to smaller sized chunks.

This was the first time I had ever seen the basecamp from this angle. A view which will be dissapearing again soon as the new building takes shape.

Once the concrete was all broken up it was loaded into a concrete crusher. This broke it down into a size we will be able make use of. It will be used in the foundation pits that will be going in next week on which the structural timbers of the building will sit.

Hedgelaying

Matt, Spike and Catherine hosted a hedgelaying event for two groups of volunteers last weekend, they were working on the hedge on Collards Lane on the way in to Swan Barn Farm.

Thanks very much to everyone who came along and volunteered, even though the weather on sunday was pretty rotten. The hedge looks great, it really makes the entrance to the property look cared for, and it is always nice to see a traditional skill like this being utilised and passed on.

First of all the excess growth is trimmed out of the hedge so that what is left will fold over neatly into a well woven screen.

Then the upright stakes are knocked in. These ones came from the same hazel coppice that is providing a lot of the materials for the Speckled Wood building.

The upright stems of the hedge have a series of cuts put in the back of them, these cuts are placed so that the leading edge of the tree stays attached to the stump, this means that the folded over stem will stay alive and continue to grow in its new position.

The skill lies in cutting at the right angle so that the stem folds over neatly, but enough of the living wood remains attached so the layed stem will stay alive. New shoots will now grow up from the base thickening up the hedge and providing stems for next time its layed.

The layed stems are then woven between the stakes to provide an attractive hedge. Lastly a series of binders, long thin hazel rods, are wound together around the tops of the stakes to hold the whole thing in place. If it’s done well, and the hedge is thick enough it can be used as a stockproof boundary. Layed hedges used to be a common feature in the landscape, but unfortunately it is quite rare to see them these days. They provide fantastic wildlife habitat, look beautiful and ensure the longevity of the tree’s they are made off. A hedge flailed by a tractor and its associated machinery is a poor substitute.

Hedgerows make important habitat coridors for a number of species by linking together woodlands. One of the species of wildlife which uses this hedge is the Dormouse. Here you can see Matt holding one we found in this hedge in a specially made nestbox which we use for monitoring their population.

They are fascinating little creatures, and they rely on exactly the sort of habitat work we do in the hedgrows and woods here at Swan Barn Farm.