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.
Category: landwork
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A frosty day up on the land
January 7th and 8th and I’m up on the land to let in our tree and landscaping person and hang around for a while in the cold. We have never attended to the long border on the north side of the land. There are lots of brambles at one end and over the last 6 months or so at least two of the poplars have died and one has collapsed very close to the existing barn. Another is now at 45 degrees, so we need to act in advance – probably well in advance – of any building work starting.
I stayed a night at the very reasonable Brome Grange Best Western hotel, a couple of miles up the A140.
I am amazed at the strength of the tools that they use both to cut up and chip these trees. They did all the work in a day.
At first I was paralysed with cold or rather the prospect of getting colder and colder but I twigged that some early spring cleaning of the barn – sweeping out the leaves that always find their way in under the doors and cleaning the bird shit from the surfaces – warmed me up. It felt good to reconnect with the building and the whole space. I hadn’t been there for a while and things feel more in limbo, strangely, knowing that we will build here but not knowing when the initial demolition work will start and who will do it. Things move so slowly that I don’t even dare to anticipate that the building will start this year.
