Chapter 07

The Manor Refurbishment

Late Monday afternoon Llewellyn is sitting in the camper doing some research on the Internet when there’s a knock on the camper door. He opens the door to see a man holding out a large roll of papers as he says, “Will said to give you these copies of the grounds and building plans. I’ve already been around to put markers on each of the property corners, fence lines, and where Serge said to mark the five gateways for you. Have a good day.” The man turns and walks away to an ATV, gets in, and drives off without introducing himself. Llewellyn slowly shakes his head as he closes the door, turns, and opens the papers to spread them on the bench to examine them. Several minutes later he leaves the camper, locks it up, and rides off on the motorbike to see where the markers are.

The first surprise is the side of the school is twelve metres inside the boundary line. Llewellyn thinks, Good. That gives plenty of room to have a pathway and a staff parking area between the school and the fence. He rides down to where there are some stakes with orange tape in the ground to mark where the gate will be in the inside western fence. This gives him a good idea of how large an area will be set aside in front of the school for a car park and recreational area.

The second surprise is when he reaches the other side of the grounds and he finds Nadia and two men there looking over the land he’ll be handing to the Wood Valley Council. From the many stakes with pink tape set out on the grounds he figures they’ve been there most of the day.

When he stops near them Nadia walks over and says, “Yesterday I did a plan of what to do for the two western recreational areas so I’m putting in the stakes for the workmen when they get here. Serge will have a three man crew here to do this one tomorrow while I stake out the one in front of the school. He’ll also have two man crews out here to start digging the holes and trenches for the fences. However, the fencing materials won’t be here until Thursday. We’re starting with the two recreational areas to get the bridges in to make access to the grounds easier.”

“That makes sense. I’m glad you’re getting started on the work. When will you be talking to the school about the work there?”

“I’ve an appointment with the Principal for Wednesday morning.”

“Good. Please see me when you arrive, because I want to sit in on the talks to make sure everything is properly covered and prioritised.”

“You do realise we’ve set aside most of the day for that?”

“I thought it might take that long. Although I may be able to leave you two alone after we get started. I will want to look at the final list of what’s being done and the plans before the work is approved.”

“I thought you might, Lew. I’ll have some plans for the Manor for you to look at then, as well. Yesterday I did a preliminary layout on the basis you wouldn’t need so many small staff rooms. To simplify things I did all three of the bedroom levels on the same layout with seven apartments of roughly seven by seven metres each, or bigger, with an en-suite of a toilet and a shower unit, and a single bathroom on each level except the master bedroom which has a bath in the en-suite as well. That gives you twenty-one large bedrooms for family, staff, and guests. You’ll lose about half a metre off the ceiling height in the rooms underneath them so we’ve got the room for the pipes etcetera.”

“You left all of the stairs accessible, didn’t you?”

“Yes, Lew. The middle of each floor is a hall of two and a half metre width. The guest and staff levels have a side hall of the same width to the stairs. I left an open plan room of about four by eight metres at each of those large fireplaces as I figured you’d want to use them.”

“That all sounds good, Nadia. I gather you’re leaving the family living and entertainment spaces as open plan areas, the way they are now!”

“Yes. I figure you can use moveable partitions to separate areas as you want once you’ve lived there for a while. I figure some of those spaces won’t be used unless you’re throwing a big party.”

“You’re right about that. It all sounds good. Now we just need to do it.” The rest of Llewellyn’s day is fairly slow and normal.

Tuesday

Llewellyn is about to mount the motorbike and ride out to check the work done yesterday when his phone rings. He answers it and listens to Serge asking him to meet him at the Manor in about ten minutes. He agrees to, puts the phone away, and rides to the Manor.

On reaching the Manor Llewellyn goes to the front gate to unlock it and open it before he goes to the back gate to unlock and open it too. While he’s opening the gate he hears two vehicles approaching, so he also unlocks the stables to have that open for Serge and his crew. All of the interior doors and the four ground level exit doors were unlocked and left unlocked during his last visit to the Manor.

A ute pulling a trailer with a ’scissors’ lift pulls into the courtyard at the same time as another vehicle can be heard going around the front of the Manor, so Llewellyn figures that’s another ute and lift.

Serge and four men get out of the ute. The men start to untie the lift to get it off of the trailer while Serge walks over to say, “While they get the lifts organised, let’s go open the front and back doors.”

As they walk in Llewellyn says, “Until we get the first barn built you can put the wooden shields here in the stables.” Serge just nods in reply.

The two men walk through the building to the front door where they throw the bolts to open the doors so they can closely examine how the wood shield has been installed to block the entrance so tightly. They soon find they can only open one of the doors as there are two ropes tied to the door handle of the other door. They untie the ropes and hold on to them as they expect the shield to fall, but it doesn’t. Serge walks up to look at where the wood meets the stonework, then he points at the remains of heavy canvas put between the wood and the stones.

A shout results in a return shout from outside, so Serge gives a few instructions then he signs for Llewellyn to help him push the shield out of the entrance. In the end they have to give it a few solid bumps before it’s moves and falls forward into the hands of the outside workmen.

Serge and Llewellyn turn around, go to the back door, and repeat the process there. When they look out two men are moving the lift into place to use it while the other two are there waiting to help with the doors. A few words from Serge has him going one way inside the Manor while Llewellyn goes the other way and the two workmen split up to go to the sides of the courtyard. A few minutes later they’re all at work removing the shields from the four other doors into the courtyards, two on each side of the courtyard. Then Llewellyn and Serge go to the basement to the eastern staircases so they can go up the stairs to open those two doors to remove the shields to them. As the two workers walk off with the shields Llewellyn and Serge walk into the courtyard.

They both turn to look at the three windows above the roofs of the courtyard buildings. Serge says, half to himself and half to Llewellyn, “I thought so. We’ll need the extra ropes to pull those ones to the side.”

Llewellyn replies, “Make sure you tie them tight, so you don’t drop them. One thing I don’t understand is why the inside is so clean and the air is so fresh in the building after all of this time.”

Serge smiles as he says, “Whoever closed up the Manor really knew what they were doing. Using the canvas between the wood and the stone meant they closed off all of the little gaps while enabling them to jam the shields right in there to make the doors and windows air tight. That kept all of the dirt and dust out. However, if you look up at the chimneys you can see there’s some heavy duty canvas in whatever is blocking them. I’d guess some wire mesh and multiple layers of canvas. The caps keep the rain off of the canvas, except in the worst storms, so it’s lasted this long but you can see it’s very well worn. If I’m right about the wire and canvas it allows the air to flow without letting the dirt, rubbish, and animals in. The strong winds up here blow through and cause some air movement inside the building to keep refreshing the air in there. Not much each day, but enough to get rid of that stale air smell. That means it won’t take as much work as I thought it would to get this place ready for you. We’ve had some delays in supplies for a few other jobs so I’ve pulled people off of them to set them to work here. The other jobs will take longer with the smaller work force, but it means the people there will match the materials they have to work with due to the delays.”

“I did wonder why you’re ahead of the schedule you gave me on the weekend.”

“I didn’t know about the delivery delays until yesterday morning. The supplier has an issue due to a couple of major thefts, so some deliveries are going to be late. Also, crews are at work today to do the work on the recreational areas and the streams to them. They’ll dig the new stream beds as soon as they finish the recreational areas. Then they’ll redirect the water and start filling in the old stream beds. The new paths will take a more direct line to the sides of the main field then run down near the fence before they pass under the fences to the recreational areas. You told Nadia to get in and do it, so she is. I think you’ll like the finished work as I like what the plans show. Oh, for the fences. I’m extending the cliff fence the full length of the current boundary and up to the road on the south side of the recreational area you’re giving to the council, then the rest of the fence of that area will be star pickets with three wire strands.”

“That sounds good, as it’ll make it hard for people to accidentally wander over the cliff. Some idiots will manage to do it, but we’re doing all we can reasonably do to stop them,” is Llewellyn’s reply.

Apart from the lunch break, Llewellyn spends the rest of the day with Serge assisting with the removal of the window shields and the door to the verandah over the portico. They’re all surprised how well lit the rooms are once all of the windows in a room are cleared of the shields.

Llewellyn does find the way Serge clears the chimney blocks to be very interesting. A long rope is tied to the south-east castellation of the north-west tower, dropped to the ground, then taken to the portico, tossed up, taken across and dropped down, then taken to have the end of a light line from the south-west tower tied to it. The man in that tower pulls the rope up, feeds it into a carabiner attached to a rope he has tied to the north-east castellation of the tower, pulls it taut, and ties it in a way it won’t come undone. Then a man in a safety harness attaches a short lead to that rope, climbs over the side of the tower and works his way along the roof to the middle. He stops there, attaches two long ropes he brought to the long rope and throws the other ends of the ropes over the roof. When he sees those ropes moving Llewellyn goes to the rear tower.

When he gets to the top of the tower beside the back door Llewellyn sees two men in safety harnesses on the roof with the rope over the roof attached to their safety harnesses while they work on clearing the two chimneys. The material they remove is placed in large baskets they have which are also attached to the safety lines going over the roof. When they get all of the blocking material out they find some wrought iron bars set in the walls to hinder birds getting into the chimneys. The men return to the back towers, pass the baskets over, then climb into the towers. One talks to Serge who then takes the man’s harness and goes out to inspect one of the chimneys himself. Several minutes later the two ropes over the roof have a light nylon line tied to it and they’re being pulled back over the roof. The man in the tower with Llewellyn says, “We don’t want to leave the safety ropes out, so we’re putting some light lines in their place to make putting them up again at a later time easier. The same is being done for the main line across the front of the house. We’ll need them again when we do the work on the chimneys and the roof. It won’t matter how long we leave the light lines out in the weather.”

“I’m glad to see you’re taking all of the proper safety precautions,” is Llewellyn’s answer.

“If we didn’t the boss will shout at us, then the big boss will come to give us a proper telling off. No one likes being told off by a teenage boy. I think you’d like Matt Dyer. He arrived while you were away, but there’s been a lot of talk as to which of you is the toughest. There are similarities in your histories, and you’ve both proven yourselves at an early age. Ask Serge to introduce you to him.”

Llewellyn smiles at the idea of the big boss being a teen boy. It also sounds like he might be a character as well. He’ll have to make time to meet him.

Late in the afternoon all of the exterior doors are locked and bolted from the inside, the shields and the lifts are locked in the stables before they leave for the day. The Manor looks very different without the wood shields in the windows and doorways. Serge now has a set of keys too, so he can let his workers into the Manor in the future.

Wednesday

Llewellyn’s work day starts at eight o’clock when Nadia arrives on an ATV with plans for him to look at. He gives the southern recreation area plans a cursory glance as the upstream one is very basic and he doesn’t care what she does in the one he’s handing over, and the same can be said of the one in front of the school. He does give the swimming hole for the school a more careful study, and he likes it. He also likes how both of the upstream ponds are larger with the exit more to the side than it is now, then the path of the stream is quickly directed over to be only a few metres from the southern fence and the school so he can use most of the grounds between the streams. The new stream beds are wider and slope down to the bottom for easy stock access without damaging the banks.

The interesting plan is for the three floors of bedrooms in the Manor in the way she explained on Monday. The only extra is two toilets in the open family living area on the middle level, and that makes sense. He smiles as he says, “I like the plans. Do it. The only concern I have is the toilets for the ground floor.”

“I’ve not drawn them in yet as I want to wait and see what the ground is like in the courtyard. I’m thinking of putting them in the courtyard just to the right of the back stairs, or against the wall near the stables where there’s that gap without any windows. I figure there’s no way you want to go on using the old privy outside the back gates.”

“Correct. The old privy area looks like it might be a healthy garden plot due to all the nutrients in that area. The grass around there is tall and very green. I think over near the stables might be best, and an extra sink on the outside for people working in the yard. Maybe both spots would be a better idea, so some are close to the back door for guests.”

Nadia makes some notes and they talk about some of the finer details of the interior work in the Manor.

Just before nine o’clock Nadia drives them both around to the front of the school for their appointment with the Principal about the expansion and refurbishment work on the school.

They still have a few minutes so Llewellyn stops to look at the work done in front of the school. The holes and trenches for the fences are easy to spot, as is the new path for the stream and where the three ponds will be. However, the existing stream path is still in place with a pipe for the water in the middle of where the bridge abutments and bank works are. He says, “Nadia, I do hope there’s a lot more work to be done here.”

She laughs then says, “The earthwork is finished, except for filling in the original stream bed. There’s some structures to be built and gardens to be put in yet. Once the bridge work is done the road will be put in. The fences should be going in later today or tomorrow. That depends on the amount of fencing the supplier has on hand. Serge hopes to get the cliffs done this week, and the remainder when the rest of the order is filled next week. He had a particular fencing panel in mind, but that would’ve taken several weeks to make and supply, so he changed to an acceptable fence they had stocks of on hand so he can get it in faster.”

“As long as it looks nice and is in fast is all I care about. I think, in the long term, the fence panels will be hidden by the bushes, anyway.”

“That’s why Serge felt the panel style change was acceptable.”

They both turn and walk into the school, and are met by Principal Martin as they walk across the entrance area. They’re soon seated in the Principal’s office and talking about what work the school needs done to the existing building and what new work Principal Martin feels would improve the school facilities. During the ninety minute long talk much is discussed, with the main emphasis being on the ability to expand the new structures if further expansion is warranted at a later date.

When they break for Nadia to look at the current building Llewellyn takes his leave after saying, “When you have the plans and costs send me a copy for final approval, please, Nadia. Send it through Will Dunn so he knows what’s planned as he’ll be handling the payments for me.”

Llewellyn walks back to the camper, prepares a cold lunch to take with him, and rides over to the Manor.

The Manor is like a disturbed anthill with workers moving around all over the place. It takes Llewellyn a few minutes to work out the pattern in the stairs as people are coming down the back stairs with materials to store in the stables and furniture they’re storing in the workshops.

He follows a pair of the workers back up the south-western staircase to see how things are going inside the building. Fifteen minutes later he’s slowly shaking his head about how fast they’ve been at this work as the last of the furniture being moved into storage is already on its way down the stairs. However, the tables in the dining room are too large to pass through the doors in one piece, so they’re pushed to one end and will be moved about as they need to work in that area. All of the walls in the two upper levels have been disassembled and moved to storage, and they’re now busy removing the wood boards used as a ceiling. The people removing the ceiling are on scaffolding on wheels they’ve put together on site. They’ve eight sets in use, one for each side of each level. The work is so advanced Llewellyn is sure they’ll finish this work today.

While walking through the building Llewellyn thinks, The rooms look very different with the furniture and ceiling removed, especially the office and storerooms. Walking back through the Great Hall he realises the paintings are still on the walls, so he asks one of the workers in the room he knows, “Why are the paintings still on the walls, Jenny?”

The woman supervising the workers in this room turns to him and says, “Original artwork of that size needs to be handled by experts. As we have to get them in for the big paintings we’re leaving all of the artwork for them to check over, take down, pack, and store. I suspect they’ll want to talk to you about cleaning up the frames when they get here after lunch.”

“Thank you. I best have them look at doing any conservation work the paintings need while they also make lists and value them.” She smiles and nods at his reply before turning back to watch her work crew.

Llewellyn is surprised when he walks out the front door as the portico area is cleaned up, as he expected, but the front yard has been mowed and some gardeners are at work in the flower beds as well.

While walking around looking at the yard work being done he thinks, I didn’t ask for this to be done, so I wonder who organised it. However, it does need to be done. He’s nearing the front gate when he sees someone who it appears to be the coordinator of the yard work, so Llewellyn asks, “Who ordered this work be done, Ma’am?”

The older lady in charge turns to him and says, “Lillian Owen asked me to organise a group to tidy up the garden here. Will Dunn arranged the transportation for us and told me to charge him commercial rates for the work. I co-ordinate work by locals who are mentally challenged and can’t get regular employment, so a job this big is a welcome challenge.”

“Thank you. I’m Llewellyn Owen, the inmate who’s supposed to be in charge of getting the Manor ready for living in again. In case I forget, ask Will to have you talk to us when Serge’s people have finished all of their work here. I’ll be moving in to live here then and I’ll need domestic staff like cooks, maids, and cleaners as well as some outdoor staff like a gardener etcetera. You may have some people who can do the work for us. I don’t yet know how many staff will be needed on a full-time or part-time basis, but we’ll have housing for seven full-time staff. Also, once the road is done access to Wood Valley will be easy for any part-time staff who live there.”

“Hello, Llewellyn, I’m Jackie Moore. When I saw you walking around I thought you might be the big boss. It’s good to know you’ll want to employ people, but most of our people aren’t up to any pressure work or full-time work. However, we do have some who can work full-time, they just have communications issues.”

“All I care about is that someone can do the job I hire them for. Take the cook’s job, as long as they can cook a good range of foods well I’ll let them plan the menu most of the time. If we do any big entertaining they get the night off as I’ll get caterers in, but small dinner parties will be one job they’ll have to do. I’ll need to get some advice on the staff, but where we lived before we had a woman who cooked and looked after the house for us. The house would’ve just about fitted in the Great Hall, so this is a lot bigger. I think I’ll need, as a minimum, a gardener, a cook, someone to be the cook’s assistant or serving maid, and a cleaner or housekeeper.”

“I’ll talk to Will and Lillian about what staff you’ll need. I think you’ll need a supervisor as you’ll have four or five or six other staff. If that’s so we could probably provide all of the staff you need, as long as you give the directions through the senior member of staff.”

They talk for a several more minutes before Llewellyn goes back to his bike to have his own lunch when everyone else breaks for lunch.

Shortly after he finishes eating Llewellyn watches a truck drive down from the upper plateau. Until the bridges go in the only way to drive to the Manor is to find a safe spot to cross one of the creeks, of which there are not that many, or to drive up to above where the streams start and then come back down from there, which is what this truck has done.

The truck drives into the courtyard, and four men get out. One looks around, then he walks over to Llewellyn and says, “Since I recognise everyone I can see except you, I’m guessing you’re Llewellyn Owen.” he gets a nod in reply. “I’m Joe Murphy. My crew and I are here to record the artwork and to take it into safe storage while the work is done,” as he holds his hand out for shaking.

Llewellyn shakes his hand and says, “Good. While you’re at it can you clean up the frames and do any other conservation work you feel is needed. I’d also like advice on how best to display them. I’ve also got a lot of other artwork I’d like to display in the Manor when we put it all up again. So I’ll need advice on what to put where, as well.”

“Good. Let’s go look at what we’ve got to deal with,” as he waves at the other men before he leads them all into the building.

In his previous trips through the building Llewellyn has seen all of the paintings on the walls, but this time he stops before each painting and has a very close look at it while Joe and his people discuss the work, take a photograph of it, and make notes about it. In the middle of the top two floors are private family rooms that are only accessible by passing through the family areas. These have eighteen foot by twelve foot alcoves in the middle of the rear wall. They’re above the backdoor and rear steps.

Both of the alcoves are miniature art galleries with the walls lined in paintings. The one off the lounge on the middle level is mostly landscape paintings while the ones in the upper level alcove are portrait paintings. The largest painting is on the back wall of the upper level family room alcove and it’s a life size painting of a man in medieval armour ready for war. He has a leather sword scabbard, a sword with a leather handle, and a dagger with a leather handle. The painting is so detailed you can see the very ornate carvings in the leather of the scabbard, sword handle, and dagger handle. Also, both the sword and dagger have matching carved metal knobs on the ends of the handles.

While the art experts discuss the painting Llewellyn gives the painting a thorough examination because the metal plate on the frame identifies it as being an 1830s reproduction of the painting ’Lord Dafydd Owain, 1250.’ However, the dagger in the painting looks like the fancier of the two daggers Llewellyn took from his father on the night of the attack on the farm. If it is the same dagger it’s a family heirloom that’s several centuries old. So he wonders how it came to be in his father’s possession.

When Joe and his team go back to their truck to get the equipment and packing materials they’ll need Llewellyn gets on his bike and goes to look at the other work being done. When he reaches the southern border he understands why there are so many people working inside the Manor today as there’s only one person at the recreational area. The man there is seeing the setting concrete is being kept damp so it sets properly. The holes and trenches for the boundary fences are all done, so the workers were sent to work inside the Manor today.

After his inspection tour Llewellyn returns to the camper for the day. The rest of his day and evening is slow, uneventful, and boring.

Thursday

In the morning Llewellyn has his breakfast, he puts the bike into the trailer then puts the lock through the plates to lock the trailer door shut, gets in the camper, puts everything away for travelling, then he drives up to the upper plateau, across that to the Wood Valley road, and to Rivers.

In Rivers Llewellyn’s first stop is the office of Will Dunn to sign some documents for Will, and to leave a verbal summary of the situation at the Manor with Will’s secretary because Will is in a meeting. He also asks for Will to do the on-line registration of the electric motorcycle to the trust The next stop is to buy another enclosed trailer, then on to the storage facility to pick up the things the family shipped from the USA and the items they stored before they left for the USA. While most of it fits into the trailer some of the smaller boxes have to go into the camper for there to be enough room for the electric motorcycle in the trailer. Then he goes to the auto parts store to buy a few items he needs to prepare the bike for regular use; most of the items are the fluids he needs like fuel, etc.

Llewellyn drives to the state government office to register the bike as he knows they’ll have to examine it. He parks in their car park, gets the bike out of the trailer, the fluids etc. from the camper, and the camper’s tool kit. Due to the length of the camper and trailer he parked in a spot usually used by semi-trailer trucks, so he has enough space behind the trailer to work on the motorcycle within the same marked parking space.

While he works on preparing the motorcycle for use several of the mechanics who work in the inspection section of the registry office walk over to see what he’s doing, slowly nod, then walk away. It takes about half an hour for Llewellyn to prepare the bike, then he starts the diesel engine, checks it over while it’s running, confirms the battery is charging and holding the charge, then he tests all of the electrical circuits for the lights before he puts his helmet on and rides the bike down the car park for a small distance, turns, comes back, and brakes back where he started.

After parking the bike again he turns it off, goes to the camper, makes his lunch, returns to the bike, starts it again, and sets the diesel to charge the batteries more while he sits on the bike eating his lunch. His food is soon finished and he’s just sitting there when he gets a text message from Will with an e-copy of the registration papers. Llewellyn smiles, turns the bike off, and walks over to the inspection office to see if they can check the bike out now. The man looks at the registration copy he has, takes the number of the document, enters it into his computer, and waves for the bike to be taken to a specific machine, which Llewellyn does.

The man follows Llewellyn to the machine where he ties it down to ensure the bike doesn’t leave the machine, then he climbs on, starts the bike, and runs it up through various speeds while the machine records the bike’s performance. After a few minutes he slows down, stops the bike, unties it, and says, “I saw you check the electrics and brakes earlier, so I can sign off on those too. Now get the bike out of my workshop, go into the office, and get your registration plates.”