The Dig Begins

First, a picture of the work that was done yesterday. A section of the wall bordering the lane has been removed and the stone stacked under our "Three Beeches" ready for reinstatement. The big bush has gone, but I am sure we will be able to plant something in it's place when all this work is complete. At least the contractors now have access to site without having to wreck the driveway.

At about 09:30 an articulated lorry arrived at the green outside and a medium sized Japanese digger was unloaded. This has made swift work of the area of the extension. He basically started digging down next to the house, and for each shovel full turned and dumped it down-slope behind him. This resulted in a level platform from which he could dig further, this time spinning 180 degrees and dumping the load straight down into our pit. It is amazing how quickly this was done. Here is the result by the end of the day :

The good news is that this area of the garden is previously untouched and is made up of "Cotswold brash". This is basically clay, earth and large-ish stones in a nice mixture and is, apparently, perfect for building on. This is a relief because I was concerned that digging out the foundations could be problematic for any one of a number of reasons :

• The previous owners indicated that part of the garden is already a filled in quarry.
• There are many underground springs in this limestone area. It would be just our luck to uncover one.
• Solid rock would be problematic to remove.

It is early days, but it would appear that one of the major risks to the project has proved unfounded. Famous last words....... !

Jan and I took the wheelbarrow round the site in the early evening, and managed to fish out quite a few decent sized stones, freshly dug from our own garden. They will need to be cleaned up, but should make suitable building material for garden walls etc. It will be nice to use some stone actually dug on site. It will partly make up for the sea of concrete that I am sure is going to get used in this project.

The contractors plan now is to start to underpin the existing wall of the house down to the level of the new foundations. This is a slow task as you can only do a small bit at a time. You then have to let this "go off", before moving on to the next section. I will detail this process in future entries.