Walkies for our new pet stone

We took the stone lintel for a walk from the front of the house, where it had been delivered, to the back (all down hill) and then all the way up the garden path (all up hill) to the back of the house.

It was too heavy to lift and carry down the side of the house so the long route, a few hundred metres, was preferable in terms of minimising injury to both ourselves and the stone. It also lets us test the trolley which we plan to use to move the big window along the same route later this week.

The stone is limestone cut from the local quarry at Tetbury and weighs an awful lot. We built a framework on top of the scaffold tower to allow a winch to be fixed to lift it into position.

So it's now in place above the new door opening (see yesterday's blip) operation having been masterminded by our friendly stonemason. I was particularly impressed a clever mechanical device called a split pin lewis that fits into a hole drilled in the top of the stone (exactly above the centre of gravity of the block) and is held tight by the stones weight as it's winched up into position.