And Then The Stone Room

One day, during the restoration
period, Sarah found John in a state of concussion as he had fallen from a ladder and had no idea what day of the week it was. This was the day before we were due to set of to the Scottish Highlands for a walking holiday. Surprise, not all campsite owners wiz off to sunny climes in the winter! Some, perhaps misguidedly, spend the winter either up a ladder or up a mountain in the snow walking in unforgiving territory. Fortunately he recovered to enjoy the freezing conditions near Aberdeen

 When the builders had finished installing the internal facilities of the restored Nissen Hut, Sarah and John said ‘Goodbye see you around’ ‘ No,’ they pleaded, we don’t want to see anything ROUND for a very long time.


The Stone Banker Room
No, this is not where the piles of money are stored. Some campers fantasise about the life of the campsite owner. A common fantasy is that they jet off to sunny climes when the season is over. The reality, most often is, that the winters are spent in restoration and repairs although Tom’s delight was to go on coach trips to such places as Disneyland Las Vegas on coach trips. However he did not bother with extensive repairs or development except for bundling up tent pegs in the winter.
One such repair and maintenance job  we undertook was the rebuilding of the Stone Room.

Behind the shop was a half buried wreck of a building. Like other parts of the site that had  been excavated there was a tangle of brambles, nettles, stone, the inevitable sheets of plastic, old buckets and spades, deflated footballs, broken glass and so on to remove before starting the work of renewal. This building had originally been a Banker. The definition of a Banker is a stonemason’s bench, usually built out of scrap stone. A stonemason who works continually at the banker is referred to as a Banker Mason, the workshop a Banker Shop. A Banker Bag is the piece of softening material (usually old carpet) placed on the banker’s surface to protect the piece being worked on.]
This had been the use of the building when the quarries had been worked on the land
Subsequently it was used as a pigsty and then as a kind of extra storage space before it was gradually consumed by nature.

Now The Stone Room is finished and is furnished simply , enough for two people to use, a bit like a stone tent.There is a private paved terrace with table and chairs and also a wet room with toilet, handbasin and shower. First we thought we would call this building The Pigsty but eventually settled on the slightly more romantic name The Stone Room.

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