Renovating an old farmhouse and living on the Pennines

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deadtom said:

good stuff Evo, do you know if your surrounding area has much interesting local history too?

We also got snow overnight and again this morning in our bit of the Pennines a little south of you, but it's stopped again, but it is making me feel vindicated in buying a 4x4 and fitting snow tyres to it.

Which segues back to your question about suitable second cars; I have owned my 2006 Allroad (early C6 shape) for a couple of months now and really like it. It's an effortless motorway mile munch but the proper Torsen full time 4WD system means it gets about just fine in the slush and ice. Adaptive air suspension means it can have the same ground clearance as a soft roader (albeit not as much as a proper 4x4 like Terry).

oodles of space in the back for the dog, and it has adjustable tie down points in the boot floor in case you need to strap down something heavy, which I thought was a nice touch and shows that it was designed as a bit of a workhorse

History oozes out of the ground here and i've mentioned it previously. Since deforestation hundreds of years ago:
https://texthistory.wordpress.com/2013/08/19/briti...
(which covered what went before) there has been little change to many of the remote areas so lots is still here. It certainly caused the Brontë sisters to put pen to paper and the O/H has started reading one of their novels. They covered a large area from where I was born back over to here now, but i've never had much interest in them. Maybe i'll take a bit more in time. I wouldn't have thought their novels would be very accessible, but K says the one she is on with is a good read.

TORque SENsing diffs aren't very good and have largely been superseded by clutch type and modern electronics. Torsens rely on both wheels having a certain amount of grip, if one wheel has zero grip then the other will remain static.
Unless I find anything better I think it'll be a Merc M class, but we'll see.

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Mark Benson said:

I'm not a lawyer myself but I do spend all day going over contracts, writing them, looking for loopholes and instructing lawyers, so if you wanted a hand going over the house documents I might be able to help. It's corporate law but the wording is similar and the basic premise hasn't changed for centuries.
We're up in N Yorks but my wife is a huge Bronte fan and we're often in Haworth during the summer, I'd be glad of an excuse to get out of going round the bloody parsonage again...

If you could it would be great. There is a bit of a sensitive issue buried in there somewhere which you may find interesting. You would have to pick up or i'd certainly deliver them in person, I wouldn't dare send them.

The place has a modern name, by modern I mean circa 150yrs old, but it's said that prior to that it and it's neighbour (that it's named after) were known as 'Castile', but we don't know why. Both the current name and that older name (which it's said it derived from) seem to have no connection with the house itself, or none that anyone knows as to why they are called these odd names.
Castile is something like an ancient region of Spain with lots of castles there, neither farmhouses resemble castles at all and i'm not sure of any Spanish connection either!

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deadtom said:

Evoluzione said:

TORque SENsing diffs aren't very good and have largely been superseded by clutch type and modern electronics. Torsens rely on both wheels having a certain amount of grip, if one wheel has zero grip then the other will remain static.
Unless I find anything better I think it'll be a Merc M class, but we'll see.

it's more 'proper' than Haldex at least, but you are right, calling it a proper 4x4 system may be a bit of a stretch.

Could your place name be based on the steep rocky outcrop that rises behind your house be somewhat akin to a natural 'castle'?

Yeah it's a bit of a subject all of it's own is diffs and they certainly get tested to the extreme here. The Terrano is switchable between RWD and 4WD and has a cone clutch type at the rear, but even that will revert to open type under duress. I witnessed this first hand the other week, I think it's down to X amount of power fed in or grip being found and is discussed as a percentage. Something like only X% of power being fed to one wheel. Someone will be able to explain it better.

Hmmm
There is some connection with Castile and rocky outcrops, see here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tor_(rock_formation)

Tor is an old word meaning rocky outcrop or castle koppie or kopje which is Dutch, i'll pursue it more later

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Mark Benson said:

Let me have a conflab with the boss, she'd welcome an excuse to go to Haworth and I'd get brownie points for going with her

OK thanks, PM me if it's possible, I don't mind bringing them up to you though.

Pieman68 said:

Sorry to butt in but noticed you mentioned Batley earlier on - which old mill was it?

And more importantly which chippy did you go to?

Although I'm in North Leeds now, I'm Batley born and bred - a lot of the mills were the other side of town as I lived up the hill where a lot of the owners houses were - past the train station

Lot of great history for such a small place

Yes it has a lot of interesting history, mainly industrial, there a lot of good pics on their FB page. I think it's now bed capital of the country, many years ago there were about 52 bed making businesses there, I think there are a lot more now.
As you know it's had a long history with fabric, particularly Mungo & Shoddy. One of my cousins husband is a relation and still has the family name of the local fella that invented one of the main machines that worked the cloth for it.
My O/H lived on Primrose Hill off Lady Ann Rd, near the station.
I worked at Bulrush Mills which is heading towards the park, just off Bdfd Rd. The chippy I frequented was Mother Hubbards, used to be the Batley Chinese many years ago.
Both me and my Dad were born there, but never lived there.

Edited by Evoluzione on Sunday 9th January 12:21

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Pieman68 said:

Evoluzione said:

Yes it has a lot of interesting history, mainly industrial, there a lot of good pics on their FB page. I think it's now bed capital of the country, many years ago there were about 52 bed making businesses there, I think there are a lot more now.
As you know it's had a long history with fabric, particularly Mungo & Shoddy. One of my cousins husband is a relation and still has the family name of the local fella that invented one of the main machines that worked the cloth for it.
My O/H lived on Primrose Hill off Lady Ann Rd, near the station.
I worked at Bulrush Mills which is heading towards the park, just off Bdfd Rd. The chippy I frequented was Mother Hubbards, used to be the Batley Chinese many years ago.
Both me and my Dad were born there, but never lived there.

Know Lady Ann Road well - I'm from further up Soothill

Went to Batley Grammar just up the road from Mother Hubbards (used to be the Peony if I remember correctly). I worked in the Frontier for years running one of the bars

My English teacher at school wrote a couple of plays based on the mill industry - called Shoddyopolis and the Return to Shoddyopolis (I played the lead in that one when in 6th form)

Rumoured that the Station Hotel once had about 6 heads of state staying in it at a single time due to the Shoddy and Mungo being used in large volumes for uniforms

Being the only waterway which ran through Batley the beck was in a right state back then and for many years after. It was said you could tell who the mills were working for by the colour of it - it ran blue for the Navy and green of course for the Army.
I don't know if you knew, but there was a tank in the park for a while back when the beck was uncovered by the side of the road, some fantastic footage of it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ggQyOqqrt7U&ab...

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Magooagain said:

We are not the owners but guardians for the future generations!
Something like that I think.

Thanks for the lime post.

Strange here in France where I am. The county has mainly two types of stone. In the west it's limestone. And where I am its various types of granite.

My walls are about 60 to 70 cms thick and it's built with a inner and outer course and filled with general stone along with large stone bridging the whole width.
Not a lot of lime though. It's A clay based mortar with odd stones and crap. Might be some lime or chalk but not much.
All the Brits bang on about how the externals should be lime pointed etc.
The French tend to have a cross section of opinions.
So we have a maisonary/lime mix Choice. A lime mix choice,A pre made lime whatever choice. And now what is popular is pre mixed stuff like Krend/mono couche.

We also spray the whole wall with a mono couche then let it go off over night,then wire brush it back to show some large stones but cover much of the small stuff also showing the coin/corner stones.
This can be done in one day if it's warm enough.

Not quite, but It is definitely something like that though.
What you mention is called Earth mortar, I can't claim to know much about it, but it's here: https://www.buildingconservation.com/articles/eart...
Clay or clay rich lime mortars are thought not to be good as they can set hard and shrink or get damp and swell. I'm guessing the different materials you mention are different from the damp North to the drier South? Pretty much similar to here in the UK.
In the Lake district they have slate walls with no mortar showing at all.



No soft stuff, now water harbouring, no problems.

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I've found it, sorry if it's a little pompous, smug, or even a romantic notion in this day and age, but after the research and work i've been doing it does ring true. It's by William Morris:

It has been most truly said at our meetings that:
"these old buildings do not belong to us only; that they have belonged to our forefathers, and they will belong to our descendants unless we play them false. They are not in any sense our property, to do as we like with. We are only trustees for those that come after us."

Edited by Evoluzione on Saturday 8th January 09:16

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mikeiow said:

I like that!
I’ve always said we are only custodians of our thatched cottage….trying our best to keep it in good shape, improve the bits that need fixing. It will be around long after I’ve shuffled off…..

William Morris….that reminds me of the trip we had just pre-Covid to meet some pals at Nuffield Place , owned by William Morris…..sadly for my wife, it was was the William Morris of Morris Cars, not the designer you quote: she was most disappointed
(but it was a great place to visit nonetheless!)

Reading a bit of Morris was a welcome break from constantly humming 'This ol' house' by Shakin' Stevens as I work

IanA2 said:

Also oft quoted Morris:

'Have nothing in your houses that you do not know to be beautiful or believe to be useful'

A useful maxim.

Yes it's very true, problem is you never know when something will come in handy!
It would be good to carve some of these into stone and leave them around in various inconspicuous places around the place. We both went on a beginner course for stone lettering so know a little bit about it.

C Lee Farquar said:

We delivered the concrete for a new building at his country house at Kelmscott two years ago. It's still closed for refurbishment now. Lovely place from the outside.

Going back to lime, I used NHL3.5 for a new build, all 3:1 with a BS1200 sand. It was a process that people more used to using cement could adapt to easily. It was also cost effective for me.

We did sometimes get white lumps when a bag of lime had gone a bit hard, but done properly, no.

Also, absolutely agree on winter working, not as big an issue as sometimes touted. Important that the masonry is dry in the winter, we then covered with bubblewrap.

Some did get hit by frost but it only caused minor spalling. Brushed off it looked fine, I actually preferred it, it made the wall look more established.

I didn't use any gypsum internally either, I just don't like plasterboard and modern plasters.

What did you use internally?
NHL is perfect for use with modern cavity walls, but you have to ask yourself for what reason you would use it. It's far more expensive for instance. Why that is i'm not sure, whether it's down to manufacturing costs or simply demand.

As far as frost resistance goes it's the Quicklime which is said to be the best - note I haven't proved it personally.
Lime is said to be more environmentally friendly because OPC emits Co2 when being made, yet lime absorbs it when setting. I haven't explored the Green aspect as it's a huge topic, much like the use of EVs V fossil fuel, with lots of fake or strawman arguments thrown in and difficult to prove/disprove facts.

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C Lee Farquar said:

I used lime because I prefer the way it looks and weathers. Buying by the pallet I was paying about £10 a bag IIRC. I cant remember how much we used, probably four pallets, so I'd guess a little over a grand extra to using cement. I was in no rush and the house has a large footprint for it's size so curing speed was never an issue.

Internally most of the walls are exposed brick or stone other than the kids rooms. I used lime hemp plaster for the plastered walls and ceilings. The ceiling are sawn oak lath or wood wool board.

The hemp plaster did get expensive, it never seemed to go as far as I hoped! But I love the texture of it so no regrets.

No special skills to using the hemp plaster, just get used to leaving a few days between coats.

It sounds like a very interesting build and I like the way you've successfully blended old materials with new methods. Not only must it give off a visual warmth, but also be a healthier living environment.

Tigerfox said:

Plastic drainage pipe needs a layer of gravel on it to make it work properly and filter the mud out. So i suspect that was the cause of the problem.

If you put it back make sure you have a decent fall on it and a covering of gravel. Water will run along the top of the pipe rather then go in to the pipe, strange but true and have witnessed it many times.

Older Victorian drains are often deeper and usually run clear. Connect them in if you come across any, otherwise they will blow up somewhere.

Working from the lowest point is always preferable but not always possible and marking where the drains are bubbling up is the right way. It will be a long process and you should win in the end

Yes you're right, as you probably know you can buy socks which cover the pipe to prevent mud from getting in, but how effective they are (in not becoming blocked themselves) I don't know.
I do hope I can get the old system to work, if and where it isn't, I actually haven't found one blocked yet on my land, but it's early days. If there are areas which are lacking in drainage then yes, I will link to the existing stone ones with some PVC pipe. We are in warmer and wetter times now, maybe that isn't helping.
The pipe is flowing well, but i'm not sure if at 100% so may have mud laid on the bottom of it and as you say, needs pulling up and relaying. It may not even be big enough to cope at peak flow.

We had snow then a lot of rain which melted it meaning a heck of a lot of water has gone into the ground at once, this has exceeded the capacity of whatever (probably the PVC pipe) is draining the part where the hole is. Yesterday it was bubbling over yet again.

The chaps idea of a sender unit and CAT scanner sounds perfect. I've seen the local council have put some of their CAT scanners up for sale on an auction so may have a punt, but I'm worried I don't know the first thing about them and why they are getting rid of them.
I would prefer to buy as much equipment as possible rather than hire, the job will be on and off for a number of years especially if other fields need the same kind of investigations.
The cable is cheap enough, aforementioned scanner could possibly be so too. That just means i've got to find a sender, if not at least just hiring one wouldn't be too bad.

Then after all that create a pond to keep the wildlife happy when their wetlands have been reduced! I keep seeing the odd frog here and there, but there is no permanent standing water for them. I don't know how they're surviving without it.

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CharlesdeGaulle said:

I think I'm right in saying that frogs don't need standing water. They need ponds to mate and lay but don't live in them. Obviously they need damp areas but suspect you can guarantee that year-round where you are!

A pond would be a great thing to have though, especially with all your water and land, and obviously they attract other things too.

Where would the tadpoles live? I know some toads don't need water as they don't all produce tadpoles.

CharlesdeGaulle said:

obviously they attract other things too.

Yes, sadly midges. You would hope that anything else living there would feed on their larvae and that the pond would be too far from the house to worry us, but not sure.
We do now have a big midge problem in Summer, hopefully managing the water around us so it flows rather than soaks all the ground will help get rid of them.
I was chatting to the daughter of one of the past owners who lived here in the 80s and 90s, they said it wasn't an issue back then. Also back then they were snowed in for weeks at a time, it's probably this change in temps that has allowed them to multiply, then further helped by the lack of maintenance and damage to drainage soaking the land.

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Animals again. Some of this is a touch old as I started writing it last Autumn.

Aside from laying next to me the current favourite cat spot is on the pouffe by the wood burner.



I haven't trained her to throw logs on yet.

Wherever she's lived she always prefers rainwater to tap water and likes to trot out for a drink if the weather is ok. Whether it's the taste i'm not sure, but as we've currently got our own Irnbru on tap I can certainly understand why it would be here.
Like us she is a touch lazy and prefers to use the patio door rather than the longer walk to the other door where her catflap is. To be fair the catflap is a bit awkward as it's cut through a single block wall so a bit of a thin tunnel to crawl through and also like us, is not as lithe as she used to be with a bit of a belly on her.
So she'll sit by the patio door knowing someone will open it for her, then she has to make her mind up if the weather suits her or not.
I went over and opened the door the other week as Storm Barra was getting going and just as a huge icy blast of Force 10 blew across the yard, it flattened her ears and fur to her head cartoon style and threatened to blow her over completely, I couldn't help but laugh at the sight as she turned and scurried off back into the house. 'You think i'm going out in that? You must be joking!'
Irn bru it is then.

Due to the generally mild weather and lack of snow no interesting visitors to the bird table recently at all, just the usual Robin, Tits and blackbird. The Robin has already explored the garage, I left the Polytunnel door open and it went in there too for a look around.

This ugly brute was here for one reason and one reason only:



Oh yeah baby, come to daddy.

As you can see he's got a harness on and underneath is a dye applicator so you can see where he's been, we'll be having lambs come the end of Winter.

I was sat with my morning coffee the other day when I heard some terrible squealing noises, I turned to look up the banking to see a Stoat locked onto a rabbit. Stoats are not clean killers, they're butchers. It's about 1/4 of the size of a rabbit, but vicious little stz and a rabbit has zero fight in it.
They both rolled all the way down to the bottom and split apart so I went out Council style in my dressing gown to take a look and possibly help out. The Stoat poked it's head up out of the undergrowth all cute like, clocked me, then dipped down and hid. The rabbit just froze and eyeballed me with one big eye. 'Well go on then!' I'm thinking, but it wouldn't. I went off to get a stick to poke it as I wasn't going to put my hand anywhere near that stressful situation, when I turned back the rabbit was lolloping off back up the hill in a daze, it went back in its hole so I went back for some Muesli.

As I was coming back up from trying to free Terry (but only succeeding in digging it deeper in) our Shepardess was on her way down to check on the sheep. It's rare i've stood and watched this kind of scene, but as it was there in front of me I stood and enjoyed it.



The skill is amazing and the sheep were in position in no time. They were in one group, but then fed themselves through a hole in the wall to another group one by one as she counted them off to check they were all there. She then practically barked at the dog to GET DOWN! a couple of times and it did whilst she sorted out some hay for them to feed on.
The Collie is however cleverer than that. As she has her back turned to sort out the food the dog is keeping the sheep in a group on its own, it doesn't need instruction, it instinctively knows what to do. The sheep threaten to break free and move one way and it's off on it's own getting them to stop. So they go the other way and it's gently round again so they pause and think. This dog is one step beyond the norm, it's got intelligence on par with a human, probably more than some and it's a joy to watch.

Kestrels in flight
If you have even a slight interest in birds you'll likely have seen a Kestrel hovering at one time or another, they're very easy to spot as they fan their wings back and forth often hunting by the side of roads and motorways.
It's very rare they do that here, they just hold their wings at a certain angle against the wind to remain stationary. The harder it blows the tighter in towards the body they pull them, often as far in as 'Dive mode', yet remaining static.
Then as I watched it did dive, straight down into the rushes and it didn't come up for a few seconds. When it did I couldn't see it carrying anything, yet it came and sat not 10 metres away from me. I stood still, transfixed waiting. In the end it wasn't bothered about me and tucked into it's lunch while I arsed around trying to get some pics with a mobile phone.





I've caught quite a few mice, a soap eating pair in the house and a few in the barn. I was reminded it might be better if we could trap them humanely, K said yes and produced a trap out of a box. Like the traditional sprung type It was a failure at first until I modified the mechanism. Then it worked:



I took 3 up to a copse of trees and set them free, how good are their homing instincts?

That was however it's last catch. Something has managed to find out how to get in and out and I don't know how. I've set the camera up to film it, but it doesn't set that off either!

I came by someone giving away a fully grown barn owl and did consider it. For two reasons really, the first is no-one had taken it and I was worried as to who would. The other was of course we have the right environment for it here. I was hoping it could live here and just lean on us when it needed to as these kinds of relationships are possible.
However I found out it's what is called an 'imprint'. This means it's been reared by humans right from the egg. It basically acts like a human, depends on one and probably even thinks it is one. So it needs feeding expensive food and looking after like a budgie.
I think it's a bit sad someone has done this to a bird like that. Also i'm sorry I couldn't take it on, but it would have needed more than I can offer at the moment and I just hope it's gone to a good home.

[Evoluzione]

You might not ever get rich, but let me tell you it's better than diggin' a ditch.

Well actually no, i'd rather be digging a ditch in this, in Winter than washing a car.

As you may have noticed in the mini digger thread I recently bought this:



Since we've been here i've pondered, asked and researched what machine to buy and finally decided on a tracked 360' excavator.
I'd seen a couple of guys selling them on locally for a few months so bought this from them when it came up. There are a great many advantages to buying local, one of which (when you're new to the area) is that you can find out the best places to go for stuff. I now know where to get lubes, hoses & fittings, cherry etc. I'd lost all my useful local contacts which i'd made over the years when we came here.

Our closest neighbour has done a huge rebuild of his house and land, he said get a tracked 3 tonner when I suggested a small mini digger. One week into ownership and I have no regrets over the size, nor the type of machine, it has proven it's worth and has a string of jobs lined up for it for years to come.
The tracks mean it doesn't get stuck, the weight of it (3T) means it can pull quite large pieces of stone out of the ground. It's pointless having X amount of power if your machine gets pulled into the hole, rather than pulling whatever it is out of the hole.
I haggled £500 off the screen price and given I wasn't far away they delivered for free.
After they'd offloaded I explained where to turn around with a trailer in the yard. He said he'd rather pull into the entrance to the paddock. I'd previously been stuck there myself, more than once.
"You'll get stuck there, it's too soft"
"It's ok I've got 4wd"
'Whatever' I thought as I glanced across at his toy on my way to the house for the keys to Terry.
3 minutes later Terry shook, spluttered and wheezed into life as we dragged his not so serious 4wd and his trailer out of the mud
You need locking diffs to be serious, without them you just go 2wd - one at the front and one at the rear.

I found out the ground was very stony last year, but wasn't expecting some of the whoppers I found recently.






They all take a lot of digging around to loosen them before it will lift them. Some broke off the side of this as I was clumsily digging it out, then as I got it to the surface it split in half revealing this:



What lovely markings. I'm no expert, but I think it's sedimentary rock which is why it splits like it does, it looks almost like a tree cut through. You can see why our water is iron rich and brown after it's permeated through that.
Then this appeared:



This is quite handy as we need lots of stone for various projects, but I think these big pieces needs propping up somewhere, some with lettering carved in them, it's a shame to break them up for walling.

You may recall our drinking water is from a borehole, it's unfiltered, brown and has plenty of iron & manganese content. I've been doing some research into that on and off for the last few months. A water filter supplier won't sell you filters until they know exactly what is in your water, this means testing for:

Microbiological contamination – E-coli etc.

Other stuff - metals, minerals, elements etc:

Iron,
Manganese,
Turbidity,
Calcium,
Magnesium,
pH,
Nitrates,
Nitrites,
Sulphates,
Sodium,
Ammonia,
Lead,
Copper,
Chloride,
Aluminium

Council tests used to be free, but like everything else these days it's gone up in price by a huge amount. It's still a little cheaper than anywhere else though so the council lady came round and took umpteen samples. The results should be with us sometime this week I think and we have (legally) 3 months to sort it out. These results go to the filter suppliers and we get the filters to suit us.

Edited by Evoluzione on Saturday 22 January 11:03

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The results of the water tests were waiting for me when I got in tonight. No great surprises really, everything passed just fine apart from:
Turbidity (clarity) at 47 is 12 times what is recommended.
Manganese is 1014 (min is 50)
And Iron is 22 times over the limit.

Whilst I'm better keeping away from any strong magnets it isn't harmful unless you're pregnant or (IIRC) an OAP.

So now we can spec a filtration system.
You can understand people living like this back in the day, but in recent years it does make you wonder.

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dhutch said:

jason61c said:

....We've a good guy on at the minute, hes been here 6 weeks ...!!

Takes a lot longer I guess? Which is the 'cost' in using lime.

Does he know anyone in the northwest! Merseyside/Chester area?

http://rstagooden.com/

Jon @ JD Plastering, Stoke 07443 472452

And these: https://www.facebook.com/Sherrattplastering/

Ask these for a name: https://fibrehandshop.co.uk/

Edited by Evoluzione on Thursday 20th January 07:47

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silentbrown said:

Evoluzione said:

They all take a lot of digging around to loosen them before it will lift them. Some broke off the side of this as I was clumsily digging it out, then as I got it to the surface it split in half revealing this:



What lovely markings. I'm no expert, but I think it's sedimentary rock which is why it splits like it does, it looks almost like a tree cut through. You can see why our water is iron rich and brown after it's permeated through that.

I'm no geologist, but maybe you've got these there:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liesegang_rings_(geo...

Thanks for that, yes I'm pretty sure that's what they are. I wonder if it will fade away now it's exposed....

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Yes a table is not a bad idea, it would certainly make an interesting talking point and could be sited inside or out in the garden.
I was initially thinking we could use the other bit housed in the wall by the gate with the farm name chiselled into it perhaps.
It's not the strongest of stone though so handing it would be tricky.
What kind of legs or frame would you put it on though?

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monkfish1 said:

Out of interest, what sort of level above sea level are you?

We're at 327 m. (1073 ft).

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With the overnight temps we're having at the moment I could pour water into a split and let nature do it's thing

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monkfish1 said:

Evoluzione said:

monkfish1 said:

Out of interest, what sort of level above sea level are you?

We're at 327 m. (1073 ft).

Thanks

Why?

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paulrockliffe said:

Evoluzione said:

monkfish1 said:

Evoluzione said:

monkfish1 said:

Out of interest, what sort of level above sea level are you?

We're at 327 m. (1073 ft).

Thanks

Why?

Probably interested to know that you get such geology so high up. 1000ft up and it was once the bottom.

I found this conversation about it here: https://www.mindat.org/mesg-407177.html
Which (if it's correct) explains a lot and it does fit in with the situation here. It was near where the spring water flows, so it's possible that is what caused it to develop like that.