Some Answers

Some questions have been answered in the last couple of days. The first is, yes, the wooden spacers on top of the inner wall, to bring the joists up level have been retained. Blockwork has now been added between the joists in readiness to continue building the wall upwards, but the wooden spacers remain. You may remember that I wondered, a couple of days ago, whether these spacers were temporary, to be replaced with slithers of blockwork, or permanent. It appears that permanent is the answer.

Secondly, yes, the two joists that traversed across the top of the chimney breast to meet the beam, have now been cut off since the chimney breast was built up to meet them :

The photo also shows the flue rising from the fireplace below. The freestanding block behind the flue pipe shows the extent of the pillar to the side of the fireplace in the next storey up, and my view is that the flue pipe has not quite moved over in time. This is better shown by the next photo, looking the other way from behind that freestandsing block :

I suspect this small intrusion is manageable, especially if you take the thickness of the hearth into account. It was a close-run thing though ! The back of the old fireplace can be seen in the background.

Yesterday, as well as the work on the chimney breast, spacers were nailed in place mid-span between all the joists and work started on the other side of the beam. This included a square hole, lined with double joists, to accomodate our spiral staircase :