The weather in May was
good, as it usually is for this part of the North-east of Scotland, so it
did not hold up the project.
The roofs on both buildings are now complete. The new ridge tiles on the
roof of the main building look “new” but with the building’s proximity to
the sea, they will soon weather. The scaffolding is still around the
building, although it was scheduled to be down at the end of May. The
reasons that it is still up are that the stone caps for the chimneys have
still to go on and so have the final coats of the lime wash. It will be
taken down mid-June. When it comes down the building will look
spectacular, a far cry from its appearance 4 months ago.
In the first floor community space, the cabling has gone in and the light
fittings put up. Pointing around the new windows has still to be done and
this will be completed week commencing 9th June. The toilets
are ready for the flooring to go down and the sanitary ware to be fitted.
The fire retardant “varnish” has now been applied to the underside of the
ceiling timbers and we have all the windows open to get rid of the
smell!!!!!
We have already shown around this space, a representative from
Aberdeenshire Council’s Community Education Department. She is delighted
with the large open-plan area and we are now talking to her about running
various courses starting in September 2008.
In the first ice house chamber, the floor has been taken up and re-laid
with Caithness flagstones. Some of them are enormous! When the floor was
being taken up, we discovered a well and this will now be an additional
feature in this chamber. In this and the other 2 chambers, the trunking
has been laid for the electricity supply and the cobbles re-laid in the
second and third chambers. They look fantastic and only require to be
top-dressed. As this part of the building was also used to tar the nets,
there is still a strong smell of tar, which may be an added feature!!
In the old bothy part of the building, the manager’s office and
genealogical research centre have new floors and ceilings and have been
lined out. Heating pipes and telecoms and power cables have also been
installed.
We have decided to go for a ground source heating and hot water system
using boreholes. The Swedish company that did the drilling of the
boreholes arrived on site last Thursday (5th June) and finished
on Friday, having drilled 2 x 160 metre boreholes without any problems. It
was quite a sight. As this system was more expensive to buy and install,
we applied for and received a grant of £15k, (60% of the cost) from the
Energy Savings Trust.
I previously mentioned that a forthcoming edition of the BBC Landward
programme would contain a piece on the bothy. This will now be shown on
Friday 13th June and Sunday 15th June.
Scotland’s First Minister, with an invited guest list of about 100, will
officially open the building and this year’s festival on Saturday 21st
June. There will be press coverage and we are trying to get TV coverage as
well.
Unfortunately due to delays in the restoration, the building will only be
about 90/95% complete at the time of the official opening. The finishing
touches will be put to the building after this year’s festival with the
aim to have it completely finished by the end of June.
I have attached some more pictures of the building showing its current
state, but to see more you can visit our website
www.salmonbothy.co.uk
