fourth-level ferry remote Restoring Balintore Castle has given me an unprecedented understanding into the meaning of the word "remote". The first description of Balintore Castle I read featured the word remote and it seemed dreamily romantic. Certainly, my first visit to the castle, driving in darkness late on a snowy winter's evening, felt like I was on an odyssey to the end of the world. Cut to…
Books about the restoration of Balintore Castle are now available on Amazon - hurrah! Dylan Mballa has written a Spanish language version with a beautiful cover that looks like an up-market role playing game. It can be purchased here . Lorenzo Bentaila has written a French language version with a title containing a clever and revealing double meaning. It can be purchased here . Both Lorenzo and…
An update on the multi-lingual versions of the Balintore Castle Restoration blog... In addition to the French version described in my last blog entry , there is now a Spanish version: https://tradulab.blogspot.com/ Many thanks to Dylan, an undergraduate student at the University of Toulon, who has taken on the translation work as part of his academic internship. He is studying translation, and…
I have recently been approached by a couple of undergraduate students, called Lorenzo and Dylan, from the University of Toulon. They are interested in translating my castle restoration blog into a different language as their academic internship. Naturally, I agreed straightaway: it is good to get the word out there. :-) A friend called Boris is an academic at Toulon and the translation projects…
In my previous blog entry , there were some photos of a cast iron address stamp for Balintore Castle sent to me by the purchaser of this historic item. The enigmatic initials A.B. appear on the stamp, and the label on the wooden box which holds the stamp is all but illegible. I could, however, make out the words STATIONER, "103 XXXX STREET" and "GROSVENOR" - presumably this was the address of the…
I received an email out of the blue a couple of weeks ago. The sender, Alan, had purchased an job lot of items at auction. On opening a small wooden box, he found an item that turned out to be connected to the history of Balintore Castle. Naturally, I was overjoyed at his discovery, and asked for some photos. Alan called the item a "wax stamp", but I suspect it is an "ink stamp" for headed…
In June of last year, I published two blog entries Botanical Notes 1 and Botanical Notes 3 . You may have wondered what happened to Botanical Notes 2 , and quite rightly so. :-) Anyhow, I was proof-reading this article late into the night last summer, and suddenly became so tired that the only option was bed. :-) I finally resumed and finished the proof-reading today. Here we go ... What got me…
In the last few months, I have been telling myself to get out the car whenever a scene that makes an impression through the car windscreen, might register as a photograph. In practice, I rarely do as my phone is doubling as a Sat Nav. Google Maps tends to lose the plot in the absence of a mobile signal and certainly does not like photographic interludes. Also leaving the warmth of my vehicle's…
David Renwick Grant (5th May 1941 - 5th June 2022) Foreword When my neighbour David Grant died in 2022, I made a pact with myself that I would write a remembrance. The text below was written in September of 2023, the very day after an all-consuming contract job ended and I finally had some time to myself. The delay in publishing this blog entry is quite another story in itself ... Two years after…
At 4:26 AM this morning, I was awoken from an ultra-deep sleep by a violent and heavy pomelling on the base of my neck. As I am the only person in the castle, it was extraordinarily alarming. Who was doing this? Somebody else was there right behind me. When a real-world stimulus stirs us out of deep sleep, the sensation is a painful and an almost nauseous wrench. I think we actually do make that…
Amidst the slings and arrows of the current battlefield that is Balintore Castle (await future blog entries), there are still small day-to-day restoration wins that lift the heart A couple of original drawing room doors were re-hung in their original positions this week, and today an entire end wall of the drawing room was sheeted with a batch of very thick bargain basement plasterboard that I…
Many thanks to everyone who responded to a previous blog entry , offering food and shopping services while I was snowed in at the castle. As I mentioned in the article, I was surviving on the weirder items in my food store cupboards that had been abandoned due to fear. As it turned out, in some cases, the fear was justified. :-) Anyhow, my builders did get through in their 4x4, and eventually…
Osbert Lancaster , the illustrious and witty commentator on the history of British interior décor, has much to say on the Early Victorian period, including: The mantelpiece is transformed into a parade ground for the perpetual marshalling of rows of Bristol glass candlesticks, Sévres vases, Bohemian lustres around the glass-protected focal point of a massively allegorical clock. For the better…
olive p âté and heat-liquified olive oil One of the disadvantages of being snowed in at the castle, as at present, is being unable to shop for food. Unfortunately, just before being snowed in I was away for 2 weeks on festive season jaunts (Norfolk and Orkney), so I deliberately did not shop for food for a considerable time beforehand and indeed actively munched-down my supplies so there would be…
I got back to Balintore Castle from Orkney on Tuesday of this week. When I arrived there was less than one inch of snow lying around the castle, but it snowed heavily for the rest of the day and now I am snowed in. My builders reckon I could just about get down the drive in my little van, but I would never get back up again. This is "functionally" snowed in. Gregor says the snow has followed me…
As the Isles of Orkney are surrounded by the North Sea, their climate is much moderated by large bodies of water. In consequence, I was looking forward to a seasonal holiday break on the Isle of Westray, well away from the deep winter chill of Angus. Whoops! Snow has now descended upon the whole of Orkney closing roads, schools and hotels; and cancelling flights and ferries, This morning I helped…
The "family update" Chistmas letter is, according to reknown and soi-disant etiquette expert William Hanson, not read and by inference, not to be sent. So how can I persuade you to continue reading this Christmas blog entry? Well, I can promise no reference to family members whatsoever, whether over-achieving or not. Instead, I can promise you egriegous and engaging tales, exposing a villainy that…
Gavin has done an amazing job tiling a mini kitchen in a servants' room in the basement of the castle. He finished today, using a remaindered job lot of terracotta tiles that I located on eBay. tiling completed Hopefully the brick-like quality of the tiles engenders a period servant-vibe. Historic interiors can be decimated, in my opinion, by inserting modernist kitchen units. What is certain is…
Is hard to believe that this classy item of furniture below is a composite of a £10 bookcase (top-half) from Curr and Dewer auction rooms in Dundee and a converted pulpit (bottom-half) from Lochee Parish Church in Dundee. Even my builder Gregor was pretty chuffed today at how his little carpentry project has worked out. In antique circles, such an item is known as a "composite" and is generally…
While Angus Council has banned banquets of any form at Balintore Castle, one must I feel, be ready for the call when neither budgetary contraints nor bureacracy inhibit lavish largesse at scale. To that end, over the years, I have amassed a few hundred place settings from auctions up and down the land. I look for large matching sets at bargain prices. What prompted the hunt was an emergency need…
As my eyes run over the interiors of the newly restored rooms in the basement of the castle, I am most discomforted by the lack of coving. To my eyes, a sharp 90 degree angle between the wall and the ceiling is the biggest "tell" that this is a modern interior rather than an antique one. The basement suffered the most water damage, so many of the rooms were back to bare stone walls and bare earth…
Well Gregor sanded the slab of reclaimed wood that I bought recently at Steptoe's Yard in Montrose. What we both thought was weathered Cuban Mahogany turned out to be Teak. Well done to Gregor for his professional identification. Teak is even harder than Mahogany. There are Janka Hardness charts for various species of wood on the Internet. Gregor cut this up to construct two new "meal shelves"…
Having friends banned from visiting me at the castle, has made me realise that I need to take little trips into the world for mental health. So on Friday, I went on a few errands. Whilst in Montrose, I made a short detour to Steptoe's Yard , which is less a reclaim yard, than a descent into Dante's Inferno. :-) Much of the stock is unsellable or broken or decomposed, but then there is a curious…
I have been sourcing tiles for the large female servants' sitting room in the basement of the castle. The tiles are for a small kitchen area and a small bathroom area as would have been found there originally. Most modern tiles would look totally out of place in a Victorian setting, and indeed most modern tiles are vile, so one's choice is surprisingly limited. When I expressed my deep…
Alice in the dock The support by Angus Council for the restoration of Balintore Castle is demonstrated by their invitation to me, yesterday, to attend a free tour of the wonderful high-Victorian 1871 Justice of the Peace Court in Forfar. It is, I have often considered, the finest building in Forfar, and how I have wished to view the interior. Forfar Court There may be positive signs that the…