Oak & larch doors
Oak and larch doors made from customer's own timber. The log of larch was washed up on the shore of the Isle of Lewis.
From the client:
There was a storm (in, it is believed, about 1953) which resulted in a lot of long uncut timber logs being washed ashore – probably from the deck cargo of a freighter. We found a large number of logs on the north west coast. (We often found debris which came from Canada including a painted sign warning (I seem to remember) which mentioned the name of a forest.)
The next year, we brought a Tirfor winch which we carried in a small boat and then carried by hand over the land to the place where we had seen the logs. Using the winch, we pulled the logs to near the low water springs mark. At the next spring tide, we floated the logs; lashed them in series and, with a 4.5hp outboard, towed them back out into the Atlantic and back down the 2 mile or more long sea loch to the shore. We then hauled them with a Land Rover up to a promontory where they remained for many months being washed by the Hebridean rain. In the summer of that year, we tried to mill the logs with a chainsaw and attachment but this failed lamentably.
Over the following months, I arranged for the logs to be lifted by a lorry with a Hiab. That lorry which dropped them off at the county road. They were then lifted by a haulage company and taken by ferry to Ullapool. They were milled at Lael Timber mill just outside Ullapool. I then arranged for a lorry which was returning (otherwise empty) to the South of England to take the logs from the mill. The logs were then left in a well ventilated barn for some 19 years.
You made the doors – I can’t remember the date.