Cleaning the floor tiles at Barley Hall: 4

I feel I know the Barley Hall tile floor intimately now - all too intimately. There were four of us today: Trish, Sally, Peter and myself. We were doing the more central parts of the floor, having to shift settles, tables and benches to get to the tiles. For some stretches we had to wait (briefly) whilst the tiles dried before shifting the furniture. But we achieved the target for the day. Only one section remains and it's the tiles immediately in front of the dias. The photo on the right shows the cleaned tiles of the dias on the right, and the still grubby tiles on the left. The photo shows how much brighter the dias tiles are now. I shall be in on my own tomorrow to finish off the remaining grubby section.

And then after that, it's a case of seeing if there's anything I can do to clean up the tile hearth. It's a different animal from the glazed floor tiles, as the materials used there are actually 15th century. It was originally from Rawcliffe Manor, a site dug some years ago. The most amazing thing is its completeness. There were original tile hearths at Barley Hall, but they were too smashed up and robbed to use. It just so happened that Rawcliffe produced a comparatively pristine hearth of about the same size. Rather than break it up (the site was due to be developed and the archaeology destroyed), it was lifted and transferred to the Hall. I can clean the hearth at my leisure, perhaps on a day when the Museum is closed (currently Monday and Tuesday). The main thing is that I complete the tiled floor tomorrow ...

Cleaning hours clocked up today: 13 hours (total of person hours)

Overall total so far: 35.30 hours