During September and October 2024, we found the time to remove the old building. We aimed to carry out the work with minimal disruption to the nearby residents, so we decided against placing a skip on the road above, as it could have caused issues with traffic and access to neighboring properties.
We purchased this van for removing and delivering.
Step by step, we carefully removed the 20 tons of rubble by hand, keeping everything neat and tidy as we transported it back to the skips. We managed to recycle almost everything—the metal, the wood, and the beams. The only items we couldn’t save were the roof tiles, as they were more fragile than expected and not slate as originally thought.
We cleared a lot of ivy, which is a fast-growing, vigorous plant. It’s often seen as a weed because it can quickly smother smaller plants and take over bare soil. On trees, it can cover up attractive bark, hide existing problems, and even overwhelm and outcompete species with thinner canopies. The whole area was covered in dense ivy, which was bringing down the fences and damaging the stone wall at the top. We thinned it out as best we could with the limited time we had before the nights closed in, making it too dark and cold a place to work until the following spring.
Then once cleared
Coast Guard Cottage Cumbria 