Completing The Second ‘String’ Course

A glorious spring day on Monday enabled us to set in place the final pieces of the upper string course of the signalbox with a team of 6 volunteers persuading the large, heavy, awkward, expensive, contrary, will-not-cooperate lumps into their final position! This marks another milestone and brings us very close to completing all the stonework – with just the corners of the two string courses for our stonemason to deal with and a small section in the fireplace corner to finish.

When this is done, hopefully later this week, Rick, our joiner, will measure up for the heavy timber framework that will eventually contain the sliding sash windows and also support the roof.

While Rick constructs this, we will pursue a myriad of other jobs including finishing pointing the back of the rear wall, fitting the remaining floor joists, setting out the chimney breast and fireplace and clearing all the remaining stone off the scaffold so that it can be raised.

The list is long and seems to get longer, rather than shorter, but the result is something that now looks a bit like a signalbox at last.