This is me doing a job which I would have turned down 20 years ago were it not that all the other work has disappeared thanks to you know what.
From the top of that little scaffold you are looking down on the chimney pots of the four story houses of street below as seen between the row of terraced houses in the right of the panorama. That is a very steep hill.
When they delivered the scaffold the driver would not leave the truck and his lad was offloading the tubes and planks while he sat with the engine running. He explained that the handbrake did not work and he had to keep his foot on the brake to stop the whole lot from running away and making a forced entry into the houses of the street below whose chimney pots I look down on.
At one point he turned the engine off (no brake servo) and gingerly lifted his foot off the pedal to see if the truck would stay in one place. His lad was at the rear sorting out the tubes and when he saw it was running away backwards he put his hands up and pushed against it rather than get out of the way like any non-super hero would have done, and the lady owner of the house - thinking that she was about to witness a young man being crushed to death right outside her front door - actually screamed. They parked somewhere on the flat and carried all the stuff up the hill. It is tiring enough just walking up, let alone carrying 21 foot steel poles and buckets of clips.
The photo was taken by a friend of mine who just happens to be working two doors even higher than me.
That is a really great photo - both of yourself and also Bath.
ReplyDeleteIt is very irresponsible to have a truck that is so unsafe - one which obviously does not have a current MOT especially in a hilly place like Bath.
It probably does have an MOT but just needs urgent maintenance. That hill would test any hand break.
DeleteA couple of inexpensive rubber wheel chocks might have been helpful. Surprised they didn't have any. Think I'd use them on my vehicle even if my brakes were in working order on those steep hills.
ReplyDeleteBelieve me, they wouldn't have worked.
DeleteParking on the flat sounds sensible. A brilliant view. What a great job to have if it didn’t rain of course.
ReplyDeleteYes, good views.
DeleteNeeds must re the job I guess...but it keeps you out of mischief I suppose. That is a lovely photo.....but I have never wanted to live anywhere hilly, it makes me feel uncomfortable. I like big skies and flat lands with long straight horizons.....
ReplyDeleteI moved from the Cambridgeshire fens to here. It was a shock.
DeleteOkay, the 'tubes' coming out of the chimneys? What are they? Are there multiple fireplaces in the residence?
ReplyDeleteYes. Each house would have around two fireplaces per floor, leading into an in-built flue up to and through the roof as a 'chimney stack', culminating in a large terracotta 'chimney pot', as we call them.
DeleteOld chimney pots are also good for growing Rhubarb.
DeleteThe difference, I think between the small town where I live and yours, is that our very oldest houses are very tiny. As the houses got larger, and multiple fireplaces were installed, we tended to just have more than one chimney. For instance, our house has two...one that goes up through the middle of the house and was for the coal boiler in the basement which heated the water for the radiators on the first and second floors the cooking stove on the first floor. There was also a opening into the chimney on the third floor for what was possibly a small wood or coal stove. There is a coal room in the basement. There are two fireplaces, one on the first, one on the second directly above it which feed into the second chimney at the northern end of the house.
DeleteWe have no rowhouses here.
DeleteAh right. I see. houses, like motor cars, tend to hang on to old design for a long time, which is why the first cars were horseless carriages.
DeleteA quality brick chimney restoration is like piece of good art. A truck with no parking brake rolling down a hill into a lad. Sounds like something out of Monty Python.
ReplyDeleteI have built and re-built many chimneys - both brick and stone - and I have never once considered them to be art.
DeleteOur son lived on a similar street and parking in a car was a nightmare so parking a lorry with scaffolding and dodgy brakes must have been horrendous ! Love the photograph .... a great shot of you at work. XXXX
ReplyDeleteMy automatic car also has a very efficient hand brake. I can sleep at night when thinking about it.
DeleteYou have to enlarge the photo to appreciate how steep that hill really is. Now. Where’s that safety helmet? 😉
ReplyDeleteMore to the point, where's that rare and priceless meteorite that I am hoping will fall on my head?
DeleteAs Iris says, that is superb enlarged. But why are there scratch marks on the side of the house?
ReplyDeleteWhat scratch marks? Are you talking about the water streaks?
DeleteThey look like parallel grooves some of the stones.
DeleteI really cannot see what you are talking about, sorry.
DeleteMaybe you are looking at where water running down has cleaned the old coal soot staining off the stone in places. Are they running vertically?
Deletehorizontal lines - there are some in the dark patch above the privet? on the left, round the corner to the left of the scaffolding.
DeleteAh, now I see. I will look closer on Monday and try to come up with a reason. Well spotted.
DeleteSo far I have forgotten to look.
DeleteNow I know, These are ridges caused when the large stone saw (called a 'frigbob') bounces over and through harder material such as shelly beds and crystal. These saws were hand held and five feet long, not machines. I have two of them. The saw deflects a little but is corrected back to the line, but leaves waves which caused the rain to wash off some coal dust, but not all. I will explain more later if you want.
DeleteInteresting. Marks from all that time ago. I wonder if the builders bought cheap stones - 'seconds'. And if they put them that way round, what are the inside sides like? I guess when the house was new you wouldn't have been able to tell without looking closely.
DeleteThose houses are 19th, not 18th century. The sides of both 18th and 17th century buildings were always of slightly inferior - though not structurally inferior - quality. Bath is literally superficial in more ways than one. Facades were of paramount importance. The face you showed to the world was the main concern. The backs of Georgian buildings - even the most important ones - were not considered to be worth the cosmetic effort. It was all a front.
DeleteThe stone was not inferior, just the dressing of it. The insides were plastered. Our 18th century house here has fancy turned bannisters all the way up to the servant's quarters, whereupon they turn into plain square section.
DeleteI am typing this just before going to bed - I shall blame you if I have nightmares about runaway trucks.
ReplyDeleteThat's fine Weave. Blame away.
DeleteThere are hills in my home town, Akron, Ohio about 2/3 that steep. All the signage says set your handbrake and curb your tires--turn the tires toward the curb, in the event your handbrake fails, the car rolls toward the curb and is stopped. There is a hill that steep, Sherbondy Hill. My dad grew up there and used to sled down in the winter. There were two wicked curves on Sherbondy Hill.
ReplyDeleteI see the scaffolding company has its wares advertised. Did you contract with a chimney rebuilding company, and interesting their services aren't advertised up there.
That's a good idea to turn your wheels toward the curb, but for some reason nobody does that here. All scaffolding companies have banners. I am not working on the chimneys in that photo, but if I was it would be for myself. General builders and masons work on chimneys here, and their advertising is not specifically for chimneys. They do everything.
DeleteIt amused me that you had to explain chimney pots.....Just goes to show how many differences there are between countries in so many ways.
ReplyDeleteYes, it took me by surprise until I thought about it. We have grown up with chimney pots. Just look at the opening credits of Coronation Street over all these years.
DeleteIn a similar vein, here's a funny story. I took that wooden mallet you can see in the photo to Florida once (actually twice) to build a huge fireplace that the owner had bought from France.
DeleteOne day a carpenter (there are many very good carpenters in the U.S.) saw me using it and offered to lend me a hammer. He thought I had just stuck a lump of wood on a stick to use because that was all that I could find.
It's a good photo showing the steepness of the hill.
ReplyDeleteYes. My friend is keen on photography and always buys a phone with a good lens. He obviously set it to panorama mode for this one.
DeleteWhat happens when you get to the top of the hill? Does it plateau out?
DeleteNo, it keeps going up for over a mile until it turns into Lansdown race course, then it slowly drops down to Bristol or goes even further up into the Cotswolds.
DeleteAh yes I see. It is very hilly. I find hills difficult to imagine.
DeleteThe concept of hills as seen from Norfolk!
DeleteLUMMEE!!!!
ReplyDeleteLawks a mussee?
Delete