Over the course of 12 months, we stripped the old backup generator room, steam cleaned the walls, re-poured the floor and rewired it.
Before the worksAfter the works
While Hawklaw was operational, the back-up generator room housed a large diesel generator powerful enough to run the entire station in the event of mains power failing.
Little of the original equipment remained in this room when we bought Hawklaw in 2012 and the room was damp, dirty and a haven for pigeons, mice and even rats.
Step 1 – stripping the room
Although the actual generator was long gone, much of the ancillary fixtures to run it were still evident, including the giant air intake and exhaust. Both of them required a winch to safely lower them down from the roof.
winching the air intake and exhaust off the roofexhaust(ed)breaking the raised plinth
The next issue to tackle was how to remove the raised plinth. This was 12 inch deep, reinforced concrete pad laid on sand and connected to 12 reinforced concrete piles. The reason for such a heavily engineered plinth was to prevent vibrations from the diesel generator vibrating the entire engineer’s garage.
We removed it by first sawing the pad into sections with a stihl saw, then using a Hilti TE1000 heavy duty breaker to remove the sections. This was very dusty and back breaking work.
Removing and rerouting the electrics
1940’s Crabtree cast iron light switch
One of the things I love about Hawklaw is figuring out how everything worked and wherever possible, we like to renovate and reuse old things we find for example, this original Crabtree cast iron light switch that we reconditioned and is now in use in our Robin Hood Room.
The key objective was to install modern, ducted electrics in the room, but firstly, I wanted to preserve as many artefacts as I could, and temporarily reroute electrics while some of the other works continued in the room.
Sangamo Timers2 gang Crabtree light switchTemporary rerouting of the modern cabling
We discovered 2 Sangamo timers, connected to lighting circuits which were presumably used to control the exterior lighting on the site. These controls were relatively modern and able to adjust for varying hours of darkness as the seasons changed.
I accidentally cut through a 4 core fibre data cable
Strimmed data cable
Earlier this year, I cabled the engineers garage and main buildings together here at Hawklaw. Given the 170m cable run, standard ethernet was out of the question. So, I hurriedly installed a 170m pre-terminated armoured fibre cable. I haven’t yet gotten around to burying the cable, a task that’s been on my to-do list.
Last weekend, while tidying up the area around our chickens, I had an unfortunate mishap. My expensive cable made an unfortunate connection with my scrub cutter. I was faced with replacing the whole run or finding someone who could splice a fibre cable.
Initially, I considered purchasing a fusion splicer to fix it myself. However, with a price tag of £6000, there was no way I could justify the investment for a one-time repair. Hiring one was another option, but that would have taken too long and I didn’t want to be without data between the two buildings for that long.
Luckily, if you live in Fife, you’re only 2 degrees of separation from anyone and this was no exception, luckily, I “kent a boy that kens a boy” (well, it was a girl actually) who had a fusion splicer. This friend of a friend came to the rescue, and with his expertise and the magic of the splicer, he managed to repair the cable. It was a tense moment, but thanks to our helpful community, we were back online in no time!
Splicing OM4 fibre with a fusion splicer.
Lesson learned—I won’t make that mistake again. Stay tuned for more updates from Hawklaw!
The completed compact multi fibre joint. Slight overkill for a 4 core splice.
Now all I need to do is get round to hiring a mini-digger and getting this cable safely underground, where it should be!
The planning and design stage of our build is well under way. Our designs are currently with building control for approval and we are 2 weeks into a 12 week project to complete the detailed designs which will see every material, joint and dimension painstakingly detailed before we put the project out to tender.
During the winter of 2018-19 we converted the boiler room in the Engineer’s Garage into a secure storage room.
Some pictures of the boiler room before renovation.
History
We believe the engineer’s garage was built in the early 1960’s as a place to store and maintain the vehicles that were used by the engineers responsible for the upkeep of the aerial network above Cupar. The building also housed a diesel back up generator and an 11KW electricity sub station. There were 4 giant roller doors for vehicle access. The building was eventually converted into a heated store room with 3 out of the 4 roller door openings being bricked up.
The boiler room housed a Robin Hood General boiler that had been converted to run on kerosene. There is no evidence that the boiler ever ran on coal.
The room itself was in a dire state when we bought the site in 2012. The north wall was covered in green moss, paint was flaking off the walls and the place smelled heavily of kerosene. The door into the room was broken and had been boarded up by the previous owners.
Stripping Out
Our asbestos survey had picked up that the boiler contained asbestos rope, asbestos cement and possible asbestos insulation. For those reasons, the Robin Hood boiler itself was removed and disposed of by our specialist asbestos contractors. I’d have dearly loved to keep it but I have no idea what I would have done with it.
Removal of the kerosene retainer wall.
The kerosene tank was removed by another set of specialist contractors who were able to provide safe disposal certificates so we could achieve our site decontamination certificate. The rest of the pipework, electrical fittings and metal were stripped out by me over a couple of weekends.
The brick wall acting as a bund for the kerosene tank was removed by my eldest son who is most happy when swinging a 10lb sledgehammer!
We also removed the lighting, wiring, plumbing and residual pipe and metalwork from the room.
Lifting the boiler’s plinth
The firebrick plinth that the boiler was sitting on came up relatively easily using a demolition hammer with a broad chisel head, leaving a completely bare room ready for rewiring, filing and painting.
Rewiring
Since we bought Hawklaw in 2012 we have steadily replaced and upgraded the wiring over the entire site. The new garage lighting circuit was waiting just to be brought into the room and the existing external corner lights just needed to be put into conduit and routed around the top of the room.
The original wiring was stripped out of the room and replaced using painted metal and plastic conduit. We retained the original Crabtree toggle switch, added earthing and polished and panted it.
The new light in the room is a low wattage LED light that responds to both light levels and movement. Technically, the Crabtree toggle switch is redundant, but it’s nice to have something original still in the room.
Decorating
Before we could decorate, the room needed the holes in the block work filled (eg, where the heating and oil pipes entered and exited the room). I brushed the room, including the ceiling with a stiff brush to remove loose paint then hosed the entire room with water. The entire floor slopes gently to a drain so washing the room caused no water issues.
Filing, priming and painting the Robin Hood room
In all, the room took 4 coats of Dulux Weathershield exterior masonry paint. Exterior metal fittings were painted first with red oxide paint before we painted them over with our trademark ‘Hawklaw Grey’ colour. The concrete floor was filled where required with Blackfriar’s concrete repair mortar and lastly, I painted the floor with two coats of Leyland heavy duty floor paint.
The last thing to do was to find a new door for the room.
Selecting a New Door
As we’ll eventually be living on the East side of the site and this room is the furthest away building we have to the West of the site we wanted to select a secure door for this room. This building also gets the brunt of the Westerly winds so a good quality door with multi point locking and excellent seals was essential. After much searching, we selected a Hormann KSi steel security door
The Hormann KSi steel security door fitted and functioning.
Initially, we thought we wanted an outward opening door as we thought it made sense to have the West wind blow the door against its seal, rather than away from it. We got excellent advice from our door supplier (Oliphant Garage Doors, Cupar, Fife) who assured us that this door would not have any issues with leaking and so far, we’ve been more than happy with it.
The room was without an effective door for nearly eight years so we were very happy to have this fitted and have a functional room once again.
Finishing and Furnishing
The finished room now proudly stores the type of stuff that would normally reside up in your loft.
We finished the renovation in late January 2019, but didn’t actually get the door fitted until August 2019. It wasn’t long before we’d fully furnished the room with the neatly catalogued contents of our attic.
In all, the renovations cost in the region of £2,500 (including the door) and took me most of my 2018/19 Christmas holidays and a few additional weekends to complete.
We were granted full planning permission for the site in October 2016. Since then, Claire has been spending her time working on the preparations to get building under way. The expectation was that we could begin the redevelopment around March 2017. Realistically, we are likely to start in March 2017. As of today’s date (7th … Continue reading “Progress Report”
We were granted full planning permission for the site in October 2016. Since then, Claire has been spending her time working on the preparations to get building under way. The expectation was that we could begin the redevelopment around March 2017. Realistically, we are likely to start in March 2017. As of today’s date (7th September 2017) we are still waiting for written confirmation from Scottish Water that we can connect in to the sewer (although we have been given verbal permission). Following that, we still need sign off from building control. We would expect tenders for the groundworks and replacement fence to go out late 2017, early 2018. Fingers crossed the first phase of the development (the erection of the chalet on the east side) will be complete around September 2018.
19 May 2020 Note this information is now out of date. An updated post on the plans can be found here: Following our presentation to Cupar’s Community Council on the 29th April 2014, we are now able to share our plans for the Old Listening Station at Hawklaw. At long last, we have some real … Continue reading “New Proposed Plans Published”
19 May 2020 Note this information is now out of date. An updated post on the plans can be found here:
At long last, we have some real pictures to look at and our strategy for the site is starting to come together. From day 1, we were keen to maintain as much of the site as we possibly could, and to ensure that the previous secrets of the station gained their rightful place in history. What we have finally settled on is a sympathetic design for the whole site which preserves its look and heritage while ensuring a financially viable home and business which is not over developed.
Our architects (Simpson and Brown, based in Edinburgh) were given a fairly challenging brief. We asked them to design two high quality self catering holiday lets which were both to be self contained and not to impact or overlook any other property. For the main building, we asked them to retain the front façade (all 65 meters of it) and design a contemporary family home which utilised as many of the existing features of the building as possible. The plans still need a bit of finesse, but we’re not far away from the final design now.
The inspiration behind the putting green was the desire for the holiday lets to appeal to the type of holiday maker who might be attracted to the St Andrews golf courses. Cupar misses a trick on this front as we are well situated to capitalise on the overspill from that world famous holiday destination. Our thoughts now are that appealing only to golfers might narrow our potential market a bit, however, a nicely landscaped garden, doubling as a putting green seemed a sensible compromise.
The plans will no doubt go through a few more iterations, but I doubt there will be any changes to the footprint or heights of the proposed buildings.
After some negotiations, and a little bit of luck, we’ve now managed to secure the hawklaw.com domain. It took a while to transfer over, but we’ve got it now and it’s sitting safely with my normal domain registrar. So now, we can start the process of documenting our progress at this historic site and sharing … Continue reading “The New Hawklaw Blog is Live”
After some negotiations, and a little bit of luck, we’ve now managed to secure the hawklaw.com domain. It took a while to transfer over, but we’ve got it now and it’s sitting safely with my normal domain registrar.
So now, we can start the process of documenting our progress at this historic site and sharing our experiences with you.
