Most of today was spent removing another 200-300mm of soil from the ‘courtyard’ between the house and the outbuildings, since that will later be landscaped with paving and planting beds – and will end up around 150mm lower than the internal floor slabs.

It’s now clear that it won’t be practical to redistribute all the excavated soil on-site so some of that will start being removed off-site, starting next week.

Today’s progress mostly consisted of excavating another metre or so of ground all around the building, which will get a layer of stone to provide a solid base for the scaffolding (and stop things getting too muddy in the inevitable wet weather).