Building the boundary............
The site around the new house was going to be lower than Arlington, so this had to be taken in to account when working out how deep to build the footings for the boundary, which was going to be block and stone walling topped with a wooden fence. The plan was to build-in 100x100 tanalised posts, retain where necessary below ground with blockwork, and build visible walling with Callywith stone. As there were steps required in the footings, work had to start from the corner lower down the trench, and building back towards the road. A bit of educated guesswork was required to determine the depth of the footings alongside the drive, as it would eventually need to rise from the road slightly, but then profile down to run into the garage. As it turned out the guess was good apart from half a metre which I had to undermine and rebuild lower down at a later date.
All the stone for the wall came from Callywith Quarry. I am very grateful to the Owners of the quarry, Cherry and Jason Stephens, who allowed me to take the Pajero and trailer down to the quarry (wearing hi-vis and hard hat of course) and pick up the stone that was lying in areas from where the machines had moved on. I was able to select stone ideal for purpose, and although it took many trips of around 3/4 tonne each time, and punished the trailer somewhat, it helped our budget no end.
The fencing timber came from Mole Valley Farmers, a very good price, and as you would expect Farmers to complain bitterly if they were served poor quality timber, I reckoned it should be good. It looked pretty good to me, but as far as the treatment is concerned, only time will tell.
Within two months from digging out, I had built the wall as far as I could go without further excavation. The next obstacle was the wall I had previously built alongside the house which, in order to give us maximum site width, was in the wrong place and would require breaking up, and footings dug at a much lower level. I was about to become the victim of my own 'robust' building methods.
Why I put down a foundation of 6" and more for a small garden wall is beyond me...it took a hire tool and a great deal of hard graft to break it up! Trouble is, I'm still erring on the side of overkill...........
Anyway, it was time to call in the heavy mob again, and Colin arrived to dig down for the footings.
Although a great deal of ground would eventually have to be moved to build the lower back section of the house, we just chose to take out the footings for the wall, and enough room to be able to work on the wall. We had to take care, as we were digging around and below the sewer pipe for Arlington, which ran across to a manhole in the centre of the lawn (the manhole height was marked on the survey, and became our datum point for all preparatory work from that point on). I had to insert a section of PVC pipe to replace sections of vitreous clay pipe, and would before long have to lay a new system of sewer pipework, into which this pipe would flow, and ultimately remove our 'datum' manhole. For now we would just have to work around it.
As the West side patio area of Arlington is considerably higher than the level at Carn Myghal, a substantial retaining wall would need to be constructed along this whole section, and for once would justify a deep concrete footing. My old electric 'Baromix', already 30+ years old was once again working hard. A full truckload of concrete blocks, and a load of mixed aggregate was ordered from Denis May & Sons.
This was followed by a truck load of fine sand, mixing mortar for blocks laid on the fat consumed a lot of sand and cement, but progress is quick. Two weeks later on 10th October I had managed to complete that section of blockwork. I was now ready to fit the fence posts and rails, and build the secondary stone wall. Many more trips were needed to the quarry.
With a solid wall in place, the posts could be bolted into position, and rails fitted to fix them laterally. I could now continue building the stone wall onto the block base, tied in with stainless steel wall ties.
It was now late October 2009, poorer weather and shorter days, not ideal for building, especially with stone, but by mid November I had gone as far as I could.
Time to look at the next section down to the bottom of the garden. I decided to dig out these footings by hand!
I had started to work out in my own mind what form the garden would take for the new house. Rather than have sloping areas, I decided that I would have two level areas, one terraced above the other by around 2 metres, with both steps and a ramp for access. This would require another substantial retaining wall, which would benefit from being tied in to the boundary wall, the footing trench was dug to facilitate this connection.
It was nearing the end of 2009, still plenty to do but the weather was working against me now
In between working outside, I had set up a system of moulding wall cappings in the garage, so that a batch of around 7 to 8 could be made in the dry every couple of days. After they had set enough to lift, they were gradually laid on top of the finished wall sections. I had also cut paling boards for the first section of fence and fitted them.
As the new year began, the first task was building by block again, much easier to do in the cold wet weather than stonework, and progress was good so that by the end of January, it was time to fit posts and build with stone again. Completion was in sight.
2010
Work continued making capping slabs, and cutting and fitting fence palings when it was too cold or too wet to work, but finally the boundary was completed at the end of March
Although the wall was now completed, work continued in Arlington to make good the patio up to the wall, and construct a ramp to the lower lawn, by mid-April this too was complete. If we found a buyer, there would be no boundary issues to worry about. In truth we were only now in a position to sell!
It took 32 tonnes of sand and aggregate, 5.2 tonnes of cement, 952 blocks, and approximately 9 tonnes of stone to build the wall. The cost of the materials alone including timber, was £4,124, and from digging the first turf to completion of work both sides of the wall took a whisker under 11 months.
