The Stovehouse is an 84 metre long Victorian greenhouse situated in the Ornamental Gardens at Auchincruive. When Gardening Leave started in 2007, the last thing I dared contemplate was what we would do in winter, but in 2 short, hectic years, we have established Gardening Leave and now we need to widen the scope of our therapeutic activity.
As the Stovehouse has not been used for several years, it is in need of some repair and thanks to the generosity of many supporters (see our Funders section) we are about to put scaffolding around the whole building, cover it to prevent further ingress of water and then re-glaze and re-paint it so we can use it even on the shortest, darkest days of winter for woodworking, painting, growing bonsai trees and much, much more.
We have received offers of help from serving personnel; Ayrshire’s local regiment the Royal Highland Fusiliers, the NAAFI, the Royal Engineers and many others and this will be a wonderful opportunity for today’s serving personnel who are tomorrow’s veterans, to work alongside our veterans – able, skilled and hugely resourceful people – all under the watchful eye of our Stovehouse Supervisor, Hugh ‘Stevie’ McAulay who is also a veteran himself after 41 years of service in the Army.
Hugh 'Stevie' McAulay
Every month Stevie will give an update on the latest goings on & progress of the project. (See below)
Stovehouse Update
January 2012 has been yet another busy and satisfying month as well as frustrating one, the weather had a detrimental effect on the painting of the putty on the roof glass and we will have to do again at a latter date. As far as the progress and work are concerned we have however like the rest of the West coast suffered as a result of the gales and rain.
The 3rd of January till the 6th was spent repairing fences and the roof cover as best we could in preparation for the Joiner and glaziers starting back on the 9th, as a result of the local damage in the Ayr area the glaziers did not get back till the 16th. Joe, Willy (our volunteers) and I fitted the guttering onto Section 1, this is the original guttering cleaned, primed and painted. Section 5 (front middle section) has now been taken down in its entirety and the joiners have started on preparing the replacement timber as well as the upper lighting gear windows for Sections 1 and 2, they however cannot be put up and fitted until the scaffolding is down and the coping stone put on.
With section 1 fully glassed, the glaziers have now moved to section 2 and the electricians have started to install permanent power and lighting for sections 1 and 2. The progress is coming along quite nicely!
Stevie
To see progress in pictures, click here >>
