And oh my, I think it looks amazing! It’s authentish, rather than authentic, as is the entire project – as this is a private project in our back garden, practicality and planning restrictions have taken priority. But it is sturdy, and I think beautiful.
The Uvedale St Germain pear is supposed to produce extra-large fruit that keep well and must be cooked. Sadly, despite flowering well this year, and setting quite a few fruits, only one made it to anything like maturity, and I realised that its branch had broken so picked it as it wasn’t going to get any better. This is our first “warden” pear!
After losing most of its fruit early in the season, the Uvedale St Germain pear surprised me by flowering again, I think it was in June or something ridiculous. I assumed that there would be no pollination partners but amazingly, several fruits have set! They are much smaller than the spring fruits. I am leaving them to see if they develop into anything edible.
Al spent the week laying tiles, nailing them to the battens and then cementing the edges. Yes, this is not how the Anglo-Saxons did it, but we are working to modern building regs and I think the overall effect is good enough. It should be waterproof, which is honestly our main priority!
The second guard room has had its floor laid, and Al has been hard at work laying breathable membrane over the roof boards.
…but back in June, Al was still hard at work first building the structure of the rafters, then laying boards on top.
The humble monastery of Rumwoldstow was honoured to be visited by the esteemed bishop, Godfrid, and his utterly splendid cat Isidore. As Rumwoldstow exists before the Benedictine reforms of the mid-tenth century, the monastery and the behaviour of the nuns would not have been subject to very strict inspection.
However, Godfrid’s visit caused much consternation, as is told in a linked set of short videos made in association with the Dark Ages Society:
Bishop Godfrid visits Rumwoldstow, a tale in video
Not interested in videos? Well, the only other news is that the wild strawberries which have taken over part of the garden are ripe. And while the nuns live on a simple diet, it would be sinful to waste the lord’s bounty!
Some six years ago now, we moved to the house adjoining what is now Rumwoldstow. At that time, there were two self-seeded sycamore trees which overshadowed the walled garden almost entirely, being to the south. We somewhat sadly had them felled (we’ve planted other trees in more suitable locations) and one of them had a fine section of trunk that I couldn’t bear to waste, so we had some guys with a mobile sawmill cut it into beams. At the time, Rumwoldstow was a very faint beginnings of an idea and we had little in the way of plan for using the beams. However, thanks to Al’s hard work, they have now come into their own! He has used them to build the rafters for the central gatehouse tunnel; they are perfect, and were just sufficient for the job!
It’s great to make a showpiece of timber that has travelled no more than 50m from where it grew.
The rafters over the guardrooms to the sides of the gatehouse tunnel are ordinary timber bought from a builders’ merchant. But it won’t be as visible.
One final shot of the garden, which has been strimmed so you can actually walk around it. Slightly inauthentic borage – the Romans had it, and the later mediaevals, but I don’t know of evidence of it in the tenth century. But it’s covered in bees. The Iris Germanica didn’t flower last year, apart from one randomly white blossom, but the plants have filled out excellently and we have some nice purple flowers.
…so I read on the internet, and it is true, but yesterday I was roleplaying with friends and it was the perfect opportunity to warp up and start weaving my mantle trim. And my host has kittens. “Photos or it didn’t happen”, I hear you cry. Fair enough.
