The first five of the reconstituted stone steps delivered yesterday have been installed. (A further three slabs were delivered but those are destined for the top landing and can’t be installed yet.) The stone looks a bit yellow (more so than the Bath stone sample provided) but it should tone down soon enough. For some reason the slabs had been made too long – perhaps with some assumption about them being built-in to the wall (rather than supported on an additional skin of blockwork) – so needed cutting down on-site.

The stone foundation for the parking area by the Garages was levelled and compacted. It has a shallow fall to the North (the left of the photo) to help with water run-off into the grass – although it will use permeable block paving so most of the water will percolate through the paving and into the crushed stone base layer – then on into the ground beneath.

Also some more progress in the Courtyard, bringing some of the land drains together into an inspection chamber and planning the route to the next inspection chamber, which needs to avoid a foul drainage pipe and the water mains.

A little more plumbing too, mounting the four outside taps.