Under the Weather

This picture was taken on Sunday, from Beinn na h-Urchrach, a ridge to the east of the castle.  It was a stunning Highland early-winter day, with light southeasterly breezes, wall-to-wall sunshine, and air so clear one felt one could reach out and touch the distant hills - that's the island of Coll, thirty-five kilometres away, lying along the horizon.

Since Monday, with the start of the working week, the wind has gone round into the west, freshened and brought in some stormy weather.  So this morning, when I went down to the castle to catch up with progress, the men were working in a stiff force four which gusted, in some vicious hail showers, to force five or six.

To add to builder John-Paul Ashley's woes, the dumper has broken down.  In normal circumstances, it probably wouldn't take long to get a piece of machinery like this fixed, but we're miles from anywhere, down a single-track road, so access to parts and servicing is a real problem.

As can be seen from this picture, these westerlies bring in as many sunny intervals as they do showers.  Scaffolder John Forsyth is back on site.  While he has more work to do in the courtyard, he's started by putting up scaffolding in a number of places so the the workmen can reach all the castle walls.  Yesterday he completed the scaffolding against the north range's western chimney - on the right in this picture - the only one of three which was still standing when the job started.  It will be stabilised and repointed as soon as possible.

Some of the men, including Johnny O'Neil, pictured here, are continuing the slow job of clearing the loose mortar from the exterior stonework, where they're exposed to the full force of the weather. To survive a working day in these conditions, it's essential to be appropriately dressed.

As I was leaving, the men were taking a well-deserved morning break in the portkabin, and what impressed me was the cheerful atmosphere as they sat around the table drinking their tea.

The Window Problem

Formal application for a change of use of Mingary Castle, from a ruin to a dwelling house, has been with Highland Council, the local authority, for some weeks.  The Council visited the site on Tuesday and carried out a tour of inspection.  A decision is imminent.

Meanwhile, discussions continue between the Trust's architect, Francis Shaw of Shaw and Jagger, and Historic Scotland.  Francis was kind enough to give me some of his valuable time on Tuesday to describe the complexity of some of the decisions that have to be made before work can progress.  For a start, agreement had to be reached on the date that the restoration will reflect, and this will be the last time the castle was in use, some time in the 1770/80s.  The last known refurbishment of the north range (shown in the photo below, before work began) took place some around 1700, and there is no indication that any major works were carried out between then and 1770/80, so the designs need to reflect the styles of the years around 1700.

Once this was established, the form of a huge range of features has to be agreed - and a good example of the problems faced is the windows in the north range.

The windows today are gaping holes.  There are no surviving pictures to show what they were like and, to complicate matters, the design of windows was changing very quickly in the late 17th and early 18th centuries.  Prior to 1696, because the technology didn't exist to make large panes of glass, the norm was for many, small windows.  In that year, the government brought in a window tax based on the number of windows in a building, in three bands: 0-10, 10-20, and more than 20 - the north tange would have been in the middle band.  While a window tax wasn't applied in Scotland until 1748, Scotland's position in the forefront of Classical design, and the changing technology which allowed bigger sheets of glass to be formed, would have influenced the decisions made at Mingary.

If the refurbishment took place between 1696 and about 1720, then it would have been carried out by the Campbells, who had received the castle from the Duke of Argyll.  They are likely to have put in cross casement windows - the sketch gives some idea of what they would have looked like - with leaded lights.

Had the work been done a little later, the then owner, Sir Archibald Murray of Stanhope, would probably have used sash windows with thick glazing bars, both upper and lower window being divided into perhaps 16 panes.

If these are the considerations when making decisions about the windows, there must be hundreds more about other design features in this building - and the other two buildings, which are not of the same age and had very different uses.  The example of the windows gives an insight into the difficulties faced when restoring an historic building like Mingary Castle.

Many thanks to Francis Shaw for his help.

A Cold and Wet Day's Work

You'd never know, from the smiles on the faces of builder Ashley-Thompson's workmen, that the weather on site today was wet, windy and chillingly cold.  Pictured are Iain MacPhail in the foreground and Johnny O'Neil in the yellow waterproof, and they're busy on the battlements of the north curtain wall.

This site works in all weathers.  At present the men are clearing out the roots of vegetation which, over the last two centuries, has forced its way deep into the exterior stonework.

The battlements here aren't part of the original castle but were added some time around 1700, so the mortar they used wasn't the magical stuff of four hundred years earlier that has held the place together so well.   Despite this, the battlements are in much better condition than was expected.

The methods used by the castle's builders are becoming visible.  The walls were constructed by facing them with blocks of good-quality stone, then infilling the gap between with smaller stones and rubble, held in a mortar mix.

In places, this mortar mix is still in good enough condition to be left and incorporated into the build.  Any rocks which are loose, whether it's the big rocks on the walls' facings or the rubbly ones inside, are taken away, cleaned, and will be put back when the rebuild starts.

Meanwhile, builder John-Paul Ashley continues to experiment to find the right mortar mix for the exterior castle walls.  He's had another go at repointing a wall, and the results do look very good - even in the pouring rain.

But there's a long way to go, and a lot of discussion, before a decision is made as to which mortar they'll use.  One option which is being actively considered is a hot mix mortar, which involves the use of quicklime, where a reaction with water produces a mortar which is hot and will set in any weather - and set very hard.  It's probably what the original builders used, it's ideal for the sort of conditions we have on the Mingary site, but, unless great care is taken, it can be dangerous stuff.

Many thanks to John-Paul for taking me over the site today.

Winter's Coming

We're now moving rapidly into winter.  The winters here are dominated by the prevailing southwesterlies which draw in mild, wet air from the North Atlantic.  October and November are characterised by squally showers, sometimes of hail, and bright sunny intervals, but recently it's been more of the showers than the sun, with a rainfall total for the last week in October of just under 70mm.

The first thing one notices when arriving at the castle after a break of a few days is that the working area in front of the building is neat and drained, not the soggy quagmire it could so easily have become.  This is largely due to the loads of rock which were spread across it, which allow the rainwater to percolate through.

The wind was a blustery force 5 when I climbed the scaffolding, but the walkways, although wet, aren't slippery, and the railings give one a sense of security.  Most of the scaffolding in the courtyard is complete, though the scaffolders are due to return in a week to complete the job.

While I was on the highest scaffolding the wind suddenly picked up, gusting towards gale force.  As a wall of sleet hit the structure the whole scaffolding framework reverberated and the boards underfoot hummed.  A retreat to the down-wind side of the castle brought some protection, but working in those conditions would have been impossible.

Last winter Ricky Clark, who lives in one of the nearby Mingary Cottages, recorded a gust of over a hundred miles an hour.  It'll be interesting to see how the structure survives in those conditions.

The Castle from the Sea

With the tide low I walked round the east side of the castle today, and crossed the shingle beach onto the wave-cut platform, going out as far as I could in order to try to recreate Iain Thornber's picture which was featured on Sunday's blog entry.  There's a rock platform which got me fairly far out, but nothing like far enough to achieve the angle of the old photo, which has the hill called Glas Bheinn in the background.  Either it was taken from a boat, or at low tide during spring tides.  I'll try again.

Mingary Castle in the 1890s

This photograph of Mingary Castle has been sent me by Iain Thornber, a local archaeologist and historian who lives on Morvern.  Iain writes a weekly column in the Oban Times, our local paper.

Iain dates the picture to some time in the 1890s.

The nearest equivalent picture I have in my library is this one, taken from a little further away and not so far out on the rocks - and before the scaffolding went up.  The main differences one notices are that two of the chimneys have gone.  Otherwise, the castle has survived the 120 years remarkably well.

Next time we have a very low tide, I'll try to get out on the wave-cut platform and take the identical view.

Many thanks to Iain for letting us publish his photograph.

Rapid Progress on Site

The scaffolding is now complete on the outside of the castle, and easy access is now available to all levels - from the bottom of the moat and the beach to the highest battlements.  The roof on the main building is also finished, so John Forsyth of JRandM Scaffolding is now concentrating on the two smaller ranges in the courtyard.

This picture shows the west range with the scaffold rising around it.  John has to organise the structure so that the builders can easily reach every part of the walls, including the three fireplaces with their chimneys, some of which are in a dangerous state.

This picture shows the east range, which is smaller and easier for the builders to access.  The plan at present is to raise the scaffolding as far as the level of the battlements, after which it will be capped by a temporary roof which will enable the building to be dried out before work begins on it.  At the same time, this roof will be high enough to allow John-Paul Ashley's men to rebuild the range's slate roof.

Meanwhile, stonemason 'H' has been continuing the long and dangerous task of stabilising the many lintels in the main range.  Most had oak lintels, some of which had completely disappeared.  They're being replaced by these reinforced concrete ones.

These new lintels are above one of the windows in the front aspect of the main range.  These have required the insertion of nine concrete lintels into each, while....

....this interior wall has needed six.  This example is the top of a doorway where it is nothing short of a miracle that the wall above hasn't collapsed.

The lintel of this doorway has now been replaced, the stones reinserted above it, and pointed ready for drying out and plastering.

Work has also restarted in the eastern end of the moat, where a digger is lowering the basement ready for the building of the biomass boiler which will heat the castle.  All the wood for this biomass will come from the Estate's pine forests.  Similar boilers are already in use in the Estate's other castle at Glenborrodale and in many of the Estate's letting houses.

The digger driver today is Estate worker Angus-John Cameron from Portuairk.  Now there's a happy man: a nice warm cab beats chasing cows and sheep around Ardnamurchan's hills on a wet day.