Friday at Guédelon, Florian et Patrice are setting up the tool to guide the building of the domed roof (une voûte en coupole) of the ground floor tower chamber (la tour des essarteurs, angle sud-est). The stick has a hinged peg on its end, which sits in a hole in the lump of wood, exactly in the centre of the chamber, so it can be rotated and/or lifted, to gauge the distance to any part of the semi-circle dome being built - very neat.
Meanwhile we were continuing the outside part of the wall, with Melanie (in the hat) and Pascal, the maçon in charge of this tower.
At the end of the day, we took a look at the work going on on the top of la tour maîtresse which also gives superb views of the rest of the site.
This bit is not open to the public yet, so we were lucky to be able to go up there.
As a contrast to the medieval methods we are using, the new visitor centre in the distance (not visible to most visitors) is being constructed using good old 21st century breeze-block.
The two horses that pull the carts, delivering materials around the site, get a rest and a chance to graze in a paddock at the end of the day. They only work a half-day each, so life is pretty cushy for them!
View of la tour des essarteurs (where we were working) from la tour maîtresse .
moi et Pascal (sun direct on my eyes)
Pascal in front of le logis seigneurial just about to go off for a long weekend, leaving us, the next day to mix the week's worth of coarse mortar or chaux de remplisssage used to infill the wall. No cement mixers here...
Just an hour of back-breaking work
and finally a pile of mortar for the next week.
So, this is hole the second
and hole the third, that we managed to complete in two and a half days
with all the accompanying infill behind.
Surprisingly, we really didn't want to leave!
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