The Barn Gets an Extension

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It’s about time for another update.  Progress is good and we are on schedule for a June opening.  Must start planning the party. Over Easter Gwyn was off site putting together the timber frame for the barn extension.  It was delivered last Wednesday and went up very quickly with help from our neighbour, Ian Jones.  We’re very lucky to have helpful neighbours and ones that have useful pieces of kit such as telehandlers. Some pictures of the delivery and construction.  There would have been more but Richard helpfully deleted them from the camera before I had chance to upload them.

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The extension will be timber clad with a slate roof.  The overhanging eaves at the front will have a bike storage area and somewhere to store logs for the wood burning stove.   Next week its time for the slate roof and underfloor heating with heat supplied by the new biomass boiler.

We are taking bookings, there’s a booking enquiry form here.

Wild Wales Challenge

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Entries to the Wild Wales Challenge are now open.  As the organisers say, it’s not a sportive, nor is it a race (shame).  It is a challenge.

We are both Wild Wales veterans, sort of.  I have ridden it about five times, Richard once.  I was even the first female finisher one year, although as it has been said, it is not a race.  I used to travel up from South London in a mini bus with a motley crew of cyclists and stay in the White Lion Royal Hotel and latterly Bala Backpackers. It was how I came to know and love Bala.  There is no irony here. I did have a nice collection of commemorative slates but they were lost in one of my many house moves.

The challenge starts and finishes in Bala and we can offer you the ultimate in bike friendly accommodation at Ty Beic.  We have secure bike storage, workshop facilities, a bike wash and hosts who can give you the lowdown on the local area and who will be delighted to listen to tales of your exploits and triumphs after you have completed the ride.  We may also give you a beer.

Each cottage is available for a special rate Wild Wales Challenge rate of £70 per night.  If you want to make a weekend of it, we have a special rate of 3 nights for £200.  There are further discounts available if you book both cottages together. Use the contact form in Prices and availability to make a booking.  Please mention Wild Wales Challenge when booking.

And start training so you can see this view on your way back to Bala… Cadair Idris and Barmouth Bridge

Hoping to be open in June…

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We’re still planning for an early summer opening and despite appearances to the contrary, we are reasonably on track.

Most of the messy external work was completed in March. This included drains and a package plant, courtesy of Peacock Drains, and stonemasonry by Eilir Rowlands and Aled Jones (not that one). We now have holes in both buildings ready for the Richard to make the window frames and doors for as well as being a lover of bicycles and mud, he is also a fairly competent cabinet maker. Some of his more interesting creations, which may find their way into the cottages, can be found on www.catchweasel.com. Apologies for the blatant advertising.

Towards the end of the month the internal timber frames in the barn and stable were built. Gwyn is now off site for a few days building the timber frame for the extension which will house the entrance and staircase for the barn.

Some pictorial evidence of March’s work….

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The most momentous event in March was the arrival of Jac:

Jac, Head of Marketing

Everyone’s work rate has decreased since his arrival but the distraction is a welcome one and I’m not complaining.

A little piece of history

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I have been following with interest the daily tweets from St Fagan’s from the diary of Kate Rowlands who lived at Ty Hen a hundred years ago.

The history of our house, the farm buildings we are converting and the land around is very important to us.  We feel incredibly lucky to live here and be part of a Welsh community that is so rooted in history.  To be able to find out something about the people who lived here a century ago is not only fascinating but helps us to understand something about where we live.  Our aim has always been to restore some of the original character to the main house and to convert the barns as sympathetically as possible.  Helping us to do this is, is Eilir Rowlands.  Kate’s grandson.

The diary tweets can be a little dry.  Endless visits to the chapel and prayer meetings and constant talk about “big weather” or “tywydd mawr”.  The obsession with the weather is still very much in evidence today and understandably so.

There is a blog on the St Fagan’s website which summarises the diary entries and also provides historical context and background information.  This is a far more interesting read.  It is in Cymraeg so provides good practise for me and with a little help from google translate I can usually understand it.

The blog entry from 13 January is particularly interesting. ‘Pwy ‘di pwy’, or ‘Who’s Who’ tells us that Kate, with her mother and step father, moved to Ty Hen in the 1890’s.  Kate’s mother was from Hendre, Cefnddwysarn where Eilir now lives.

Kate was an only child and left school early aged 14 to work on the farm.

Here’s a picture of Kate as a child:

dyddiadurkate

and here’s one taken in 1969: dyddiadurkate

That’s not outside Ty Hen.

As well as updates on building works, I will also from time to time update on the trials and travails of Kate Rowlands.

Probably the nicest laundry in the world*

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* potentially, Carlsberg not included.

February has been a strange month.  The snow and freezing temperatures at the beginning of the year more or less put a stop to work but once that cleared a couple of weeks ago, it has been all systems go.

Eilir Rowlands has been with us for a few weeks and as well supplying us with photos of Ty Hen through the decades, more of these later, he has been building stone walls and creating lots of holes in existing walls.  This is all good and planned.  We are turning the (pictured) pig sty into a laundry.  The door opening has been widened and made taller so a washing machine and tumble dryer can be installed and unless you are 7ft tall, one can also enter without the fear of decapitation.  Eilir has also started work on creating a new window in the barn and closing up the east end wall. Laundry room

I do love a nice stone wall and the one that Eilir has built is particularly nice:

holiday accommodation

And here are some pictures of the rest of the work that has been taking place:

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Gwyn has been with us throughout and has been in charge of concrete, floors, shuttering, block work and other things that keep him outside in the snow, hail, sleet and rain.

I’ve been working on the website, which has been tweaked and updated, and the facebook page.  In a nice warm house.

Splosh – a post about cleaning

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Is it possible to get excited about cleaning? As recommended by our friends at Casal dei Fichi, Splosh will be supplying our cleaning products.  Eco friendly, non animal tested and using refillable containers, it will mean less trips to the recycling centre and fits in nicely with our environmental aims.  And they’re based in Wales. Something like this should be arriving through the post any day soon…… Splosh If you want to try them for yourselves use the code 2704A6 to get £5 off a starter pack.

Byd bach, small world

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We have a new person on site. Eilir Rowlands, landscape gardener and stonemason, is building a retaining wall and creating new openings for windows and doors in the old stone walls. Eilir knows the house well as his grandmother, Kate Rowlands, lived at Ty Hen. Byd bach.  Her diary is being serialised on twitter by St Fagan’s National History Museum.  The tweets are in Welsh and often in the local dialect so they are a little difficult to understand (for me), but they do offer a fascinating insight into life on the farm 100 years ago.  From taking a large sow to Bala (I may not have understood that tweet correctly), to the travels of the threshing machine and the news of a young man in Llandderfel dying of TB.  And the weather is usually ofnadwy.

Eilir also gave us a photo of Ty Hen from 1960s and a picture of him in front of the pig sty.  Eilir is on the right. Eilir Rowlands Ty Hen c1960

Ffensio (Cymraeg for fencing)

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December was busy and productive, January less so. Some concrete was poured then Gwyn went skiing for a week in Austria and brought back snow and ice.  Not the requested cow bell.  It gave us an excuse to test the new sledges and made for some very pretty photos but put a stop to anymore concrete work.  Too cold.  In the meantime, the rotten sycamore was felled (see previous post) and we had some fencing erected in the field in front of the barn.

That doesn’t sound very exciting but it is to us as it means we have an area of the field set aside for guest car parking and a separate garden and barbecue area.  The natural/organic lawnmowers (sheep and cows) can continue to use the field until we turn it into a pump / cyclocross track.  That’s next year’s project. We have lots of other ideas for the field including a sauna and pizza oven.  The latter inspired by many happy, slightly drunken evenings spent at Bob and Ian’s pizza nights at Casal dei Fichi.

Wood chip, wood and more wood

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A biomass boiler needs fuel.  Thanks to Huw from Ynni Coed Cymru the chip store is now nice and full and should keep us warm for a few months.

If that doesn’t we have this.Wood store January 2015

With much reluctance, we had to take down the large sycamore in front of the house.  It was rotten and hollow and was in danger of falling. On to the barn.  Peter Hughes and Co arrived last Monday to do the job. I planned to take lots of photos but they were too quick for me to get my act together. We now have lots of firewood, an improved view of the Berwyns and enough room to turn around a plethora of VW transporters.