Restoring the Avish. Why we bothered ...
An old farm cottage with tumbledown walls full of ivy and fushsia, a tree growing in the kitchen and a horse in the hall. An old house left empty for over forty years as first the farmers and then the farm labourers moved on to pastures less rough and hilly. Like so many derelict cottages all over Ireland, the Avish could have melded into the landscape, leaving just a circle of trees and hawthorn bushes and a grassy mound of moss-covered stones to mark an end to all the lives that had been lived there.
With the dire state of the outhouses and the cottage and the nearest electricity pole half a mile away, restoring the Avish was a slightly demented act of faith. Faith that our future lies also in our roots, that the past helps make sense of the present and that in bringing a place like this back to life, you rebuild and restore more than just a house.
The outbuildings and cottage were rebuilt over a period of five years, with a degree of financial assistance from the EU's Leader + rural development programme. The plans were drawn up and submitted by local architect, Paul M'Garvey, who has a real feel for vernacular Irish building, and who introduced us to the best builders in the country: William Smith & Sons, who worked along with us for many, many months, with barely a complaint.
We re-used what we could from the old cottage and worked exclusively with traditional and ecological building materials and techniques. Lime mortar was used to rebuild the walls, which were plastered with a lime/sand mix on the outside and insulated with lime and hemp on the inside. The floors are of stone and solid oak, laid on a screed of lime and sand over ventilated aggregate. The roof is thickly insulated with loose hemp and hemp wool, and the wooden vaulted ceilings are painted with natural wax.
We also rebuilt the dry stone walls around the garden and up the lane - and added a spiral herb garden.
Since 2014, the kitchen and bedrooms have been heated by a wood-pellet stove which we programme according to the visitors' needs. The living room has a multi-fuel stove and solar panels are fitted on the south-facing roof which help heat the water. Our aim is to use only renewable energy sources as much as possible.
The Avish is over 250 years old and has been in our family for five generations. We owe and dedicate its restoration to the memory of all who lived and farmed here, but especially to that of our father, Jack Longwell, who had the good sense to re-slate the house after a storm blew the roof in, and of his sister, our aunt, Kathleen Montgomery, who encouraged us through every step of the restoration. Their stories of the cottage as a family home made us care about what happened to it.
We extend the very warmest of welcomes to those who, in coming to stay at the Avish, help preserve this cottage for all our generations to come.
With the dire state of the outhouses and the cottage and the nearest electricity pole half a mile away, restoring the Avish was a slightly demented act of faith. Faith that our future lies also in our roots, that the past helps make sense of the present and that in bringing a place like this back to life, you rebuild and restore more than just a house.
The outbuildings and cottage were rebuilt over a period of five years, with a degree of financial assistance from the EU's Leader + rural development programme. The plans were drawn up and submitted by local architect, Paul M'Garvey, who has a real feel for vernacular Irish building, and who introduced us to the best builders in the country: William Smith & Sons, who worked along with us for many, many months, with barely a complaint.
We re-used what we could from the old cottage and worked exclusively with traditional and ecological building materials and techniques. Lime mortar was used to rebuild the walls, which were plastered with a lime/sand mix on the outside and insulated with lime and hemp on the inside. The floors are of stone and solid oak, laid on a screed of lime and sand over ventilated aggregate. The roof is thickly insulated with loose hemp and hemp wool, and the wooden vaulted ceilings are painted with natural wax.
We also rebuilt the dry stone walls around the garden and up the lane - and added a spiral herb garden.
Since 2014, the kitchen and bedrooms have been heated by a wood-pellet stove which we programme according to the visitors' needs. The living room has a multi-fuel stove and solar panels are fitted on the south-facing roof which help heat the water. Our aim is to use only renewable energy sources as much as possible.
The Avish is over 250 years old and has been in our family for five generations. We owe and dedicate its restoration to the memory of all who lived and farmed here, but especially to that of our father, Jack Longwell, who had the good sense to re-slate the house after a storm blew the roof in, and of his sister, our aunt, Kathleen Montgomery, who encouraged us through every step of the restoration. Their stories of the cottage as a family home made us care about what happened to it.
We extend the very warmest of welcomes to those who, in coming to stay at the Avish, help preserve this cottage for all our generations to come.
