Please enjoy the following music as I did these past few weeks:
A lychgate is a common architectural piece in the British Isles. It's just a roofed gate between the outer area of a church and the inner cemetery. Figuratively, it's a threshold between worlds. For a dozen reasons there are deep cultural significances to these.
I've left out specific design elements, carvings, and motifs from the plans because I honestly don't know what I'm doing with it yet. I usually build this way. I tend to only commit to the next 3 or 4 steps with a general idea of the finished project. there are just too many factors to consider upfront. Working in the gray-zone is where I thrive.
Typically these were made of English oak (quercus rober). Since I'm not English and not in England, I'll be substituting Eastern white oak (Quercus alba) which is a little harder and hardier. Less brown than English oak but that doesn't matter much for the exterior. It'll age to a lovely other-worldly silver.
I won't be ushering any corpses into the next realm of existence at the moment. For now, the threshold I'm building will separate a large hillside with the garden and chicken coop.
There was previously a nasty, large, rotting gate here before. The doors were unusable and the area just became a dumping ground. One had to gingerly remove one of the fence panels on hinges to gain access and then lean heavy steel plates against it to keep it shut.
Well, that's some kind of threshold. Let's get a little classier. I spent the better part of the day knocking everything down and clearing the land. It was a pleasure to have some diesel power by my side, for once. You cannot tell from the photo but we are on the mountain side, so the soil is heavily fortified with massive stones. The younger me would've insisted I do this all by hand. Not sure that's a healthy way to continue on into my 40's.
Naturally, while operating the excavator I'm reenacting scenes from 2014 film Fury all day.
Even with an excavator there's still an incredible amount of ground work by hand. These big hulking machines can be only so surgical.
The foundation is going to act like a stone wall would. I flatted 3' below grade with a layer of large stones packed into the dirt then leveled and tamped with 3/4" crushed stone, giving a bed to receive the concrete plinths.
The plinths are 7" wide, 55" long, and taper to 10" at the base 30" down. I loaded rebar in there and drove the vertical rebar 18" into the ground. I ran out of wire for the rebar and had to use zip-ties instead. Shhhh, don't tell anyone. SE is shaking his head in shame right now and TR is nodding saying "genius!"
I *think* it will be fine. I left an apology note for the poor bastard who has to rebuild this in 100 years.
I then backfilled with more mountain stone and dirt compacted.
After grading the soil there was so much upheaval that it became a massive mud pit. And those plinths are exposed too proudly. I don't want concrete to be showing for the gate, it will throw off the entire aesthetic. Concrete is just so ugly and soulless. It just smacks too much of soviet block construction. See: brutalism.
I had 3.5 tons of 1.5" stone aggregate delivered to fill the area and firm up the soil. Shoveling 1.5" crushed stone sucks. Please, don't try it. Hire someone. This brought the ground about 1" below the plinth line. Perfect for receiving pea gravel when the project is finished.
Speaking of fowl and feathered friends, I finished another raven's head. I mounted it up on the rafters of the grotto facing one of outdoor working areas. It's nice to have some top cover. I'm curious to see if the real raven that is following me around lately will come by and look at it.
Next week I'll write about the beefy timbers of Northern red oak (quercus rubra) I had delivered. Lot's to mill.
MTF.