Success accross South Ormsby Estate
This week Dan Emerson and his father David took on the big fallen Beech tree. We captured David sharpening his saw ready to tackle the remains of the beast. It is all in neat chunks now. The brash has been burnt and we have certainly filled our wood store ready for winter fires. Their grabber is great for moving big branches.
Richard Walter our Library volunteer has virtually finished listing the books in the library and has begun his next task -starting to download books from google scholar. We were amazed to find that many of our library books (some of which are several hundred years old) can be downloaded free of charge. We are eventually hoping we can put those we have successfully downloaded from the internet onto our website so friends of South Ormsby can read books from our library!
We have just had a new shower installed in the main bathroom by Lindsey plumbing and they were also kept quite busy in the house as we discovered a leak in the cellar. The old manuscripts were required with plans of 1927 plumbing in order to fully investigate the old pipework. Appropriate digital illustrations were printed out, so the plumbers could use them to trace the old networks.
Up at the Rectory, things are really shaping up. Pipework has been installed, as have the en-suite bathrooms. The traditional white ceramics look great and the heated towel rails are very robust.
New wooden window frames have been made, replacing like for like and these have been glazed and had sash cords fitted, thus keeping the original look of the Rectory. The render was, of course, removed as it was in very bad repair and is now being replaced. The feature cornice will be retained.
Paul Horton brought over a couple of jars of honey made from our own Estate bees. We all enjoyed tasting it and Jan particularly likes just a bit on her toast in the mornings… not too much though as it is very, very sweet!
We have recently been able to add a little more into our history files as one of our tenants put us in touch with a lovely lady call Sue Fox. She is related to the Skipwith family and was able to provide us with some research linking her ancestors to the South Ormsby Skipwith’s.
She kindly lent us her paperwork which we photocopied. By coincidence, we were also approached by Grey Skipwith from Winchester who was also related to the same family. He came to visit us and to see the Skipwith brasses in St Leonard’s Church.
We’ve had some more training for staff and Julie O’Donnell came in to present the team with their certificates for passing the course on lifting. She is a good teacher and staff are looking forward to Fire Safety Training with her after the summer
