Now this is going to confuse you no matter how I try to explain it. The following picture is of part of Room 1 which is going to become our living area…
Room 1a
It’s an odd layout – coming into the room off the main stair you go up a stair to this room (call it 1a) and down a stair to the other part of the room (1b). This is one of the oldest parts of the building and architects who have been in here have pointed out a few interesting features…
end of the building?
I don’t know if you can see, but there are some dressed stones embedded in the wall to the right of the door. I’d thought that the folk who built the place had simply re-used some stones from another building, but apparently not…
If stones could talk this would be a noisy place to live
Sorry about all these red cables getting in the way – blame the fire alarm engineers. Anyway, it seems that these faced stones were originally on the outside of the building and it was extended outwards towards the High Street. There are masons’ marks on some of the stones but I don’t think you can see them here. Meanwhile…
looking out or looking in?
in the wall dividing the two rooms there is a window. Again, I’d assumed that this was the outside of the building, but if the theory about the crowsteps being the front is correct then this was the inside of the room… but what an odd room…
A narrow room
If you look closely you can see a line in the stonework where the building originally ended – it’s since been extended back the way. So originally this was a tall skinny building with crowsteps at the front. There are rumours of part of the building having originally been a tower, but if it was here then it wasn’t a very high one. In the end it’s mostly guesswork, but I thought I’d show some pictures before it gets covered up again when we start upgrading these rooms.
