The Garden

Since I was watching the history of British gardening on TV last night, I thought it might be time to talk a little about the space outside the house. When we moved in, there was a patio, large bay tree, one ornamental shrub and a small shed all in the back garden. Previous to that we had been in a one-bedroom flat so this was our first garden.

The first task was to find out what was there, then to tool up for planting, pruning and mowing. Within a few weeks of moving in the shrub fell over and killed off half the lawn (which was patchy anyway - this was the middle of winter). The rear fence was also covered in ivy which ran all the way along the boundary to the house. Having had the previous episode with root growth through the house walls, I decided to embark on some radical pruning. This took about 3 days and filled around 6 bags with Ivy! At this point I found that the ivy was largely responsible for holding up the garden fence.

Once spring arrived it was time to get the lawn sorted. I decided that this would be done with seed and proceeded to double dig the existing lawn area (2 days). This exposed all sorts of roots and builder's rubble just below the surface. We removed the worst of this and added topsoil to the thinnest areas then prepared a compost and sand mix about 2 inches thick over the whole lawn. After seeding and tamping the area down it had to be watered every day for around 3 weeks, at which point grass shoots started to appear. It also became apparent that the local pigeons had had at least a 3rd of the seed, so I did all this twice and remembered to net the lawn the 2nd time!

The bay tree was about 6m tall when we moved in and then proceeded to add about another 4m over the next 4 years. In the end I resorted to getting a tree surgeon out to give it a thorough pruning. There is a reason that most people grow these in pots or planters and that is that these things are like triffids bent on world domination! Every year it sprouts shoots and saplings all over the garden, however it does provide evergreen shade and lots of bayleaves (although I think the amount of stews and soups needed to use these up could feed half of London). It also stops rain getting at the plants and lawn below it so there is a need to actively water that part of the garden regularly.

Once this was sorted out it was time to consider the planting beds. I had actually done quite a bit of landscape work as an architect, so I had a much better idea of what I wanted to add and where. The main thing is to try and picture what the plants will look like in 2 or 3 years time, and also allow for how they change seasonally. So the main structure was done with evergeen shrubs (preferably flowering) and in between this I went for maples and birch which don't completely block out the sun in summer (allowing bedding plants to grow underneath) and provide good colour all year (see picture above). More recently I've added some fruit trees and shifted some of the original planting around (the maples didn't like direct sun - leafburn).

So what's left to do? Well, the existing garden is actually on a hill and the patio is more or less at finished internal floor level with the inevitable pea-gravel to ensure that the damp drains away from the house walls. The native base soil is clay and over time the slurry fills up the gravel giving it the drainage properties of concrete. So the main thing is to fix the levels so that the gravel isn't necessary. This means a level change of around 225mm somewhere mid-slope, and some channel drainage to deal with the patio run-off. At the same time the planting beds near the house could do with being bigger, and there is a definite need for more storage (new sheds and outdoor cupboards for pots, BBQs etc).

Oh, and did I mention herbs? Lots of these all over the place (mostly in pots but some in the beds). So far the collection includes marjoram, origano, tarragon, mint, sage, thyme, rosemary, lovage, garlic and chives with a seasonal planting of basil, parsley and coriander. I'll talk more about sheds later on when I've figured out what they'll be!

The Plans

I had a few requests from (mainly) architect friends to put the plans up so here they are. These are the ones that went in for planning.

Starting on the ground floor, the mess that is the bathroom and store disappear, and allow the living room to expand and provide a utility and cloakroom space. On the first floor the box room becomes the main bathroom, and on the 2nd floor there are 2 new bedrooms, some storage and an en-suite appears.

It all sounds quite simple when put this way, but I've managed to spend about 3 years getting to this stage. Some of this was just spending time on other options that since fell by the wayside, and of course getting the finance together took a while. The drawings reflect this, and have a lot more detail than a normal set of planning drawings, simply because I've had time to think through the construction and refine the details.

In future posts I'll walk through each of the spaces and provide some rationale for why things are the way that they are. Some of the spaces have changed internally since then, and I also had a rethink on the garden. Currently I'm waiting on the structural engineer to finish work and then no doubt some other things will change as well.

What the Victorians Didn't Do for Us - Part 4

The Roof.

The pitched roof spans between the two brick party walls, and in this case is slate. The slates are overlapped so that at any point on the roof surface you get three slates thick. This is designed to stop leakage through the gaps (not entirely, but the law of averages means that during rain most of the water flows down the roof slope rather than through the gaps). The slates are nailed to timber battens, which in turn are supported on the roof rafters.

Unlike a modern roof, there are no trusses, and the structural frame is braced by the purlins and cross braces at centre span. In addition there is no roofing felt under the battens and over the rafters. In a modern house the felt stops drafts, and ensures that any water that gets through the slates has a path down the slope to the eaves. The Victorians didn't have an equivalent to this, and their buildings were built this way to ensure maximum ventilation to both the roofspace (to prevent the growth of wood rot) and also to allow air in to fuel the coal and wood-burning fireplaces.

You can see on the right that the rear chimney breast has been removed, and the remaining stack is now supported on a concrete lintol bearing on a steel L-section bracket. This is in accordance with the latest regulations, but it would have helped if the previous builder had cut the lintol back and had enough confidence in their work to remove the additional timber props under it! Perhaps refixing the purlin support would have been a good idea as well?

The battens and slates continue over the party walls and form a continuous slate roof between the adjacent properties. There are no firestops at this point, and the pointing on the party walls is intermittent, so there isn't much of a smoke barrier either, in the event of a fire next door. Where the roof abuts the chimney the rafters are trimmed, and the slates are cut and made weatherproof by using lead flashing. This is thin sheets of lead, tucked into the slate courses and bedded into the vertical surfaces of the brick chimney.

The chimney itself normally has a slate course at the top acting as a dpc to stop damp moving down the brickwork from the top. Similarly lead sheet is used as a valley gutter where the rear outrigger of the house hits the main roof. At this point it sits on what is known as a valley rafter (here this is just a couple of boards, rather than a full beam).

What the Victorians Didn't Do for Us - Part3

The brickwork of the house provides most of the load bearing structure and carries the weight of the floors and roof down to the footings. The image above shows a typical long cross-section through the house, mirroring the one from the 1898 drawings. Bricks are modular and sized so that they are twice as long as they are wide. In the 19th century there was less standardisation than there is now, and inevitably the bricks on our house are not standard. This poses problems if there is any damage to the bricks since any replacement is not necessarily the right size! Modern bricks are standardised at 215x102x65mm (9x4x3 inches approximately). The facade uses 3 or 4 types of standard brick: stock facing bricks for the main walls, slightly rougher ones where the walls are not exposed (such as in the loft on the party walls), red bricks for the brick arches over windows and decorative string coursing (single courses of brick which break up the pattern of the facade), and slightly redder bricks on the front bay.

The bricks are laid 9 inches thick for all the external walls and the party walls between the adjoining terrace. Load-bearing walls on the ground floor are a single half brick thick (4 inches). The coursing is what is called Flemish bond, and there are lots of special bricks which are used to turn corners and ensure that the coursing works. To find out more about bricks, Ibstock offer good technical advice here.

All the windows and doors have stone cills which have been painted white. The rear windows have flat red brick arches over them, and the front ones have stone ones (the structure is actually carried by the timber lintol behind these).

At ground level, where the bricks continue below the slate dpc, they are dressed with a cement render which further protects them from frost and damp.

The house in question

the frontthe back