We wanted to do something on the inside walls besides the seats. Sean's whisky niche, modelled on a one litre bottle of Duty Free Glenlivet fit the bill.
He writes " The moon niche was the cause of much thought and discussion and not too much agreement at times. We knew we wanted the seats to look at something, but what? John certainly had a desire to use some black and white setts somewhere, (pallets of granite cobble stones were available for using ) and the idea to to poke things out to create some sort of relief was decided upon. Initially John had suggested that for the outer walls, more on that later, but here inside he finally got to do it and then of course it transmuted to the outside door voussoir motif as well."
It was something about a dream I had of a moon cycle. Sean and Mark went with it. It was very important not to alternate black and whites around the recessed mica schist circle (but rather have one half of the circle black and the other white) with a polished moonstone at the top. Mark and Elizabeth worked together to shape these black and white stone setts so that they were tapered. Mark says the black ones were ridiculously hard to shape.
Sean goes on..
"The size of the circle I think John and I worked out together and we got it right not too big, not too small, nearly perfect."
"Construction - once we had decided on the diameter, John made a semi-circular form and a corresponding template made for the cobblestone voussoirs, all cut by Mark and Elizabeth. I started the building to get the upside-down half circle form in place and building up to the voussoirs to hold them. Halfway up the form was inverted and placement of voussoirs handed over to the others. Then the marvellously inventive keystone. The back was Sidney peak on edge with a ribbon of Romero sandstone through the centre."
"There is a secret compartment with a disguised movable stone door ". Sean calls it a 'safe'. " Not sure we should say much about this. Anyway there's a hidden ‘safe’ ie - a cubby hole in the wall which has a removable stone , and a nice marble tile base that no one will ever see. There’s a knack to removing the stone, it's not going to happen by accident.
"Has anything been hidden away inside yet? We had the idea of a photo of the builders. Maybe we should but a time capsule with this blog in it, and a glass of whisky for emergencies (and one of Peters giant joints?). If you know there's a hidden niche you could probably work out where it is, otherwise no-one would ever guess."
