Door into the front tower

Panelling on right

The old oak door that we removed for renovation from the entrance into the 16th century tower is nearly ready to be refitted. The new door frame should be finished this week, sadly the old one had rotted away due to water damage. In order to remove the old frame we had to also take out some wooden panelling from just inside the door and

Panels removed

this also proved to be quite rotten. Behind this panelling however was the old stone wall still partly covered in render. We decided to remove the render, re point the stone and return the entrance and doorway to how it would originally have looked 400 years ago! In the first photo you can just see the old panels on the right with the old painted door still in place. Above this

Finished

doorway is a stone stairway that leads to the top of the chateau. At some point it was covered in wooden steps and I am really hoping that when these come off the original stone stairs will be in pretty good condition underneath. Whilst we are doing the renovation work it is best to leave them covered and protected. The second photo is after we had removed the paneling and the last photo shows the doorway as it now looks having been re pointed. can't wait to refit the beautiful oak door that looks amazing.