Description:The document above describes the building work which was required on a house being built at Park in Caverswall in 1828.
The specification is divided into sections telling us about the ‘Mason Work’ required on the house, and also the work which carpenters would undertake on the property.
The present house on the site in Park was to be demolished, and the new property constructed in the same place if there was suitably firm ground for foundations. The description of the mason’s work states that the house was ‘to be 45ft. by 22 ½ Feet over the walls’, with the front and back walls ‘to be 2ft. 3In. thick’. Doors, windows and floors are described in the specification of ‘Mason Work’, including notes that the ‘lintels & hearths’ were to be ‘polished freestone’. It was intended that ‘the ‘Lobby’ in the house would be ‘paved with freestone flags’ similarly to the hearth, and that the windows in the front wall of the house would be seven feet by three feet in size.
The specification of ‘Carpenter Work’ on the property includes technical notes about joists for the ‘garret’ and the staircase in the house, then provides a detailed description of the materials used in the building.
The roof would be tiled with the ‘best’ quality of slate and ‘all the walls and ceilings’ were to be given ‘three coats of plaster’. The doors were to be painted and fitted with iron locks and ‘brass nobs’. The outer windows were to be fitted with shutters made from the best Baltic pine, whereas ‘the roof floors, doors &c.’ would be constructed using ‘yellow American pine’.
The specification concludes by stating that the work was to be completed in July 1828.
Click on the images on the left to see more of the Specification.