[thistleclub]

Mortar aside, Ancaster's Hermitage rebuild on track
(Ancaster News, Richard Leitner, Dec 2 2015)

The contractor restoring the main three walls of Ancaster’s Hermitage ruins says all the stone blocks should be back in their original place and capped by Christmas.

Matt Kuhlmann of Rock Solid Natural Stone Masons Ltd. said work will then turn to sealing the joints with mortar in January, weather permitting.

His Ancaster firm began dismantling the 160-year-old remnants of the fire destroyed mansion in July, a painstaking process that mapped and numbered each stone, after being awarded the $460,000 untendered contract for the job.

Only the front and side walls are being rebuilt — on top of a new foundation with internal steel bracing to keep the stones in place — but Rock Solid is also restoring a missing section over the distinctive arched entrance.

Kuhlmann said the section has been the biggest challenge to date because he’s had to rely on a blowup of an old photograph taken before it collapsed.

“We’re trying to match all of the original stone arrangements,” he said. “We’re close. We’re not 100 per cent on getting every rock the exact size, but it’s going to be good.”

The weather has been cooperative so far, but Kuhlmann said he expected to tarp and heat the east wall this week and then do the same for sections of wall as they’re pointed with mortar.

“If we can finish all the pointing in January we will, and if not, we’ll do it in the springtime, but either way early springtime we’ll be cleaning up the site,” he said.


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