Almost one year on, the frame of Wray Castle's bin store has been clad and a roof put on.
I returned to Wray Castle to see the bin store that I helped to make out of oak felled from a National Trust wood. We only had time to fell, hew and cleave, and then to assemble the frame in one week. The rangers have finished the cladding well: it looks smart and consistent. They have left our work on show: nice!
We volunteers felled the timber for the transoms and wind braces, and then hewed them into shape. The jowl posts — the four corner uprights, the sole plates — the horizontal beams that the rest of the frame sits on — and the tie beams — beams that tie the jowl posts together across the shortest length — were felled earlier by the rangers and cut by an old saw-mill that is kept running by the National Trust. We cut the joints out, though, to make the jowl posts, sole plates, tie beams, transoms and wind braces; we then assembled the frame on the final day. (We also dug the foundations, as such: twelve concrete blocks half buried in gravel!)