Fellridge

22/12/2025

Ye olde Derbyshire oak gate for the 2025 finale. Ledge and brace structure with copper clinched nails, salvaged iron hardware and hand-planed timber. The top capping piece was an old stud-turned-prop that was supporting the rotten ridge beam upstairs, now repaired. Bossed and welded lead post caps by Lou.

Continuing considerations of the creative process: utility vs aesthetics; machines vs hands; contrived vs intuitive. Essential food for thought as a human bean.

We've been working on and off at this 17th C. house for over two years, starting with the roof and chimney. Making and installing this garden gate is the last job.

Thanks to for rebuilding an unstable section of the garden dry stone wall with odd bits of gritstone to accommodate the gate post. Everything worked out exactly as intended 👍

Happy solstice/midwinter/Christmas and thanks to everyone in our extended community of craft, conservation and construction.

19/12/2025

As we're soon to be arching back towards the summer solstice: photos from earlier this year at .croft.living renewing the original roof of the late 19th C. outhouse, which was right about ready for it (see last photo).

The work on this building was started by participants of the 2024 working party, with the classic Calbux 90 'tears of joy' (lime leeching) as evidence.

One of the challenges with 'working parties' (apart from tending to all of the pointing) is ensuring there is some continuity beyond the event itself. So, it was grand to be back here keeping things moving forward for J&E, who continue to put their own hands to work across their property.

The roof will eventually be torched internally, along with the rest of the work needed to return the building back to its former glory: providing first class sanitation as a professional latrine.

10/12/2025

Bit of lead work done for at Liverpool to prevent any further damage to brick and stonework

17/11/2025

Rewarding to see my multi-page spread in the Autumn magazine: reflecting on travelling via opportunities in building conservation, from Orkney to Antarctica.

Mentions of great sources of inspiration in: .daleperrin

Good times, people & places.
Love what ye do & do what ye love.

02/11/2025

Lead roof recently finished off on a property in Rhosesmor, North Wales

28/09/2025

1. Just prior to removing window in Antarctica back in February.
2. Post-mortem in the workshop.
3. Signal Red going on the frames.
4. Painting sashes with
5. Packing for shipping with Dan and Jo
6. Myself & Princess Jasmine: goodbye Antarctic windows and goodbye ye olde feld cabin, which has sold and is leaving the workshop this coming week.

Got there in the end. 🥲

26/09/2025

6 windows for Antarctica finished this week. An incredible opportunity that I've thrown everything at. A summer in the workshop seems to have passed by in a blink.

These are exact replicas of a 1950s window I shipped back in March that was beyond repair. They're fairly complex with some odd details like separate (though easily replaceable) sills and lower sashes that don't open.

I used slow-grown, straight-grained Swedish redwood and quartered and oriented the heartwood outwards on every component. I'm hoping this will go a long way in prolonging their lifespan.

Painted with Restoration White and Signal Red, which was a custom colour to match the original paint. No micro-plastic paint...

beading on the glazing as the birds on the island eat the linseed putty.

and hardware.

These are packed for shipping now and will arrive in Antarctica in December. I'm due to arrive in January to fit them.

Photo at the end of where they'll be fitted.

27/07/2025

SPAB Fellows 2025 visiting Derbyshire this week, on the road far north. A fine quartet. William would be happy.

21/04/2025

The Fellridge Field Cabin is nearly ready to go in a field...

Before Antarctica, before the SPAB Fellowship and before Fellridge (over 3 years ago) I started building a timber framed cabin on a tandem axle trailer.

I'd just finished working on a train conversion and after seeing a British Rail MK2 passenger carriage maneuvered into a workshop I fancied building my own wheeled creation in the old cow shed where I reside.

I had no set plans going into it except that I had, for a long time, wanted to build a small, timber framed cabin from salvaged and repurposed material (at the expense of many planer/saw blades). I wasn't sure if it was for us to eventually live in or to sell on.

Since getting home from Antarctica about a month ago I've kept myself busy in the workshop getting the cabin looking something like an end product. My most recent thoughts are that I want to sell it, so I'm now fishing for a buyer. There's still a fair bit of work left in it but the door and cladding now portray the finished aesthetic.

I've rectified plenty of my own mistakes along the way and I would, of course, do a lot differently, now knowing what I didn't know three years ago. Nonetheless, I'm happy with it, and any exhaustion or frustration does of course dissipate when met with a sense of progress.

If anyone wants to call in - to have a look at the cabin or to simply drink good coffee and talk wood & tools - I'm at the workshop most days, between Bakewell and Buxton, in the empty kingdom of Flagg.

26/02/2025

18/02/2025

The penguins are into quick-scaffold. Life is strange on this Antarctic island. The boat shed in the picture is from the 50's and I've recently had the pleasure of replenishing the bitumen paint on the felt roof, with true historic building conservator fervour.

I get to experience the joy of working around baby penguins as well as the regret of the dead and dying. There are over 1,000 of them and the island is a similar size to a football pitch. There's no silence, just pingu chaos and the occasional roll of thunder as ice shelves and crevasses collapse. The ammonia-rich aroma of the colony completely saturates clothing.

I don't miss driving or chasing the £ but I've a growing gratitude for most of life back home. I feel I've been here much longer than I have. There must be few better places to yearn and reflect and it's been a profound experience, in ways that I hadn't anticipated.

I came here for a challenge and I'm getting that. I look forward to coming home to daffodils, dogs and some simple workshop life in the great kingdom of Flagg.