Greenhouse
When we originally saw the farm (August
1997) we noticed that one of the outbuildings listed was a three sided building,
approximately 40 feet by 12 feet and covered in every type of greenery
produced by nature. We were
told that it used to be a barn for cattle, but later information suggests that it was an old
cottage which got converted to a cattle barn. Due to its state, it
didn't seem useful for anything, so we left it until the Summer of 2002.
In August 2002, Derek and I decided to
clean up the majority of the greenery and when most had gone I saw the
potential of converting it to a large greenhouse. It was put on our
"to do list", but it wasn't until Summer 2005 that we got around to it
again. The greenery impressed us with its rate of growth and it look
as bad as the first time we saw it. However, after a few days of cutting,
sawing and digging we managed to see the stone walls again. A lot
of stone had fallen down from the walls over the years and we placed them
back on the walls, using concrete as a bonding agent. We also built
up the missing fourth wall. Where the walls had reached the appropriate
height we capped with concrete. We also dug into the soil foundations
to remove the tree roots, in order to concrete the floor, the following year.
We found a few interesting items within
the building (horse shoes, wooden wheel spoke and some cutting blade. During
the Spring of 2006, we hope to complete most of the building. That
is, concrete the floor, build up the walls (with blocks), add roof beams
and attach corregated, plastic sheeting for the roof and finally add doors
and ventillation windows.
