The Two Towers

Sorry for not keeping up with our regular posting schedule in the last two weeks. We are working on some big projects and are trying to get them all finished to share with you. It was also Jan’s Birthday on Saturday and, as I had been planning a surprise party for him, I had been really busy getting things organised.

Thanks again to everyone that helped with the surprise and to our lovely friends who made the evening special. Okay, enough of my feeble excuses for not posting as much as usual, it’s back to business as usual. Our two garden gate posts are in an awful state and have been since we moved into our home about two years ago. The condition of them was mentioned in the survey we had carried out before buying the house, but they didn’t seem too bad then. Now, two winters later, they have deteriorated so much, that we don’t think they will survive another winter. That’s why we are finally having them sorted.

Having previously attempted repointing part of the garden wall (we weren’t very successful) we decided to have the main gate posts rebuilt by a professional builder. You can see that the post is barely still upright. Over time, all the mortar joints have disintegrated and there are loads of weeds growing in and around the posts. Both of the decorative capping stones are split and are just resting on the top of the post.

Instead of buying new bricks to rebuild the gate posts, we are using some bricks form other parts of our garden wall (that is also in a bad state and in need of rebuilding). We are taking down part of the garden wall (at the moment some parts are higher than others. This way, the bricks should all look similar. At the moment it looks like this.

Can you spot the difference? Both of the posts have been completely dismantled and our builder has already prepared new concrete foundations. This is what it looks like underneath the cover. The solid concrete will form the base for the new gate posts.

The capping stones are not in a great condition, but should hopefully be salvageable. They are almost impossible to come across in reclamation yards, so we are desperate to keep them. All of our neighbours still have their original gate posts, so our house would look weird without them. The stone also has the “name” of our house engraved into the front.

Our builder will be taking them to be glued back together with resin. The resin is really strong and the bond should hopefully last for years to come. Fingers crossed it’ll work. The rebuilding of the gateposts should start towards the end of this week. Hopefully we will be able to share the result with you next week.