The contractors officially started work in mid January but already by mid April, the foundations are finished and the walls are up. The roof rafters are in progress.
The front door will be in the middle.
The smaller black shape in the lower right above is the foundation for the plant shed where the machinery for the borehole will be sited.
After five years of camping next to and, lately, inside the barn, the building has vanished.
With a starting date for the work set for early January 2026, it was time to empty out the items that we were keeping and using in the barn – a mattress, table and chairs and a few tools. As you can see, we needed to work fast. This marked the end of an era of camping up here over the last five years.
Monday 24th November 2025 was the day that work started on site. The contractors, who are local, made a driveway, with some space for parking and set up the site for another local firm, Panks, to start work on the borehole that we will need for a water supply but which the builders will also need. The contractors have also placed a couple of cabins on the site. Even with this relatively minor start, the site has a completely different feel to it. It really does look like a building site. When I visited on the Wednesday, the drillers had reached down to about 20 meters. I say drillers but the hole is made purely by percussion. They drop down a heavy hollow tube with a trap door on the bottom which allows them to repeatedly pull it up, empty it and repeat. As they go down they line the deepening hole with slightly larger metal tubing and keep screwing on a further piece as this lining drops further down. Once complete they retrieve this lining having sunk what looks like blue pvc piping down to the bottom of the hole they have made. They are in clay at the moment, which is full of water, and aim to reach sand and chalk where the reliable water supply is to be found. In the video you can see the process and the small stone walls they have fashioned to contain the water and silt that they are bringing up. They say it will take two weeks for this part of the borehole to be finished and all the machinery cleared away. Once they have established a supply they pump it out (into a ditch) for up to 48 hours to encourage a flow and for the water to run clear. They will leave a rudimentary water supply for the builders to put to non-potable use. When the house is built Panks will return to install the filtration system that is needed to be able to use the water for drinking. It still seems unbelievable that this is all possible but I suppose humans have been doing this for centuries.