The Mingary Castle restoration blog was written by Jon Haylett, who lives in the local village of Kilchoan. Now that restoration is almost complete Holly and Chris Bull will take over to report on bringing the Castle back to life.

Monday 3 February 2014

Intramural Room now Clear

I'm losing count of the number of storms that have battered the peninsula since mid-December.  When I fought my way down to the castle this morning we were in the middle of another, this one a southeaster blowing a full force 8 and gusting above that.  The weather may be extreme, but the scaffolding is standing up to it very well - though walking on it round the outside of the castle is dicing with death.

My main interest today was in checking the intramural room to see progress there.  This view is taken from the angle between the north and northeast walls, looking through the doorway, and shows that the room is now largely clear - and that it stops just past the double lancet windows.  So it is a room rather than a passage.

This picture shows the west end of the room, which has just been cleared.  There's no evidence at the moment that the room continues.  At its end is what looks like a stone bench.  The double lancet window is on the right, but....

....it hasn't been completely cleared yet.  Nor has the floor been fully exposed, but what is already evident is that it was far from even along the length of the room.

This is a close-up of the 'bench'.  The archaeologists, who might have some idea of what it is, are still at work in the castle, but won't return until later today.  I hope to be back in the next couple of days to find out how they now interpret this room.

Outside, the huge amount of rubble that has been brought out by John-Paul's men has been carefully sorted.  The good-quality stone at right will be cleaned and re-used in the building.

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