Renovations: June 2019

We have had another very productive week at The Swan thanks to our regular team and our amazing volunteers.

The school room is taking shape and we have chosen the kitchenette from Howdens . We are still prepping for the decoration and we can hopefully undertake a lot of this work on our volunteer’s day. We then need to sand the floors. The plumbers and electricians just need to complete their first fixing works and away we go with the decoration.

We had a nice surprise on Tuesday when John exposed an internal window in the School Room which we will retain as a feature. After all the years covered up it does need a little work, but it will certainly provide more natural light to the stairwell.

We are currently working on the bar cellar getting it ready for all the specialist equipment needed. It has emptied, and we are hoping that it will be washed down and thoroughly cleaned during the volunteers day. This will allow the tanking (water proofing and protection) to be done in the coming days.

We still need extra weekday volunteers. Just please pop by if you want to help even if you have no skills we can find something useful for you to do. Your Swan needs you !

This is Alex Loveless who had a couple of free hours on Thursday. He came in and helped remove some of the ceilings on the first floor. Watch out for more news about Alex as he takes up the 50km Thames Path Challenge in support of The Swan.

Alan and Geraldine contacted me on Monday to express an interest in volunteering. Alan is a time served local builder and is going to offer some of his time along with Geraldine who will act as his assistant.

One of the main areas is the exposed brickwork in the bar - he will help to prepare this and then undertake all the pointing. We are at a crucial stage now with the bar and this work is invaluable.

Marilyn (site project manager)

Hello another week has flown by so quickly and we have been making some great progress. The Volunteer Day has given us a great platform to move forward from.

The plumbers and electricians have been busy undertaking the remainder of the first fixing works to the bar areas.

The school room is still work in progress and it is taking time as we have so much old timber to fill and prep but we are getting there.

I went to see the Fire Brigade a few weeks ago to ask if they could kindly assist in taking the old Swan pub sign down for us. It was too dangerous for us to work from a ladder and a tower scaffold or cherry picker would have cost too much and would block the road.

They came along on Tuesday evening to do this for us. So it is a huge thank you to Chris, Mark, Craig and the team at Station 20 Red watch for helping us and being part of The Swan Community.

We will adding the lads to our Swan Heroes page very soon.

Our husband and wife team Gerry & Alan have done some amazing work to the exposed brickwork in the bar. We are going to look so trendy!

I have been busy with Matt our new manager choosing all the pub equipment including a cocktail station! We are also going to have a rather nice coffee barista machine. As you can see, he can't wait to welcome you to The Swan in a few weeks time.

I have ordered some nice birch wood timber for the new sign and this will be taken to our artist on Wednesday who will start work on creating our new sign incorporating the new logo (which is top secret).

We are still working on the bar cellar getting it ready for all the specialist equipment needed and we are damp sealing it at the moment.

Marilyn (site project manager)

Hello everyone. The sun is shining as I am writing this on a make shift bench in The Swan yard.

Alan and Gerry our almost resident husband and wife team have made amazing progress with the exposed brick walls to the main pub and are now working on the men’s toilets. We have a specialist brick sealer that we need to apply when finished so this will be another job for one of our volunteers.

As well as our usual team of volunteers we had two new faces this week John Laing and John "Bosco" Ridge. They have done fantastic work doing a multitude of tasks from painting damp proof to the cellar to de-nailing.

Dermot was busy this week taking general rubbish down to the church as our lovely vicar has allowed us to use their bins. This of course all helps with skip costs.

Trevor one of our regulars has been doing some heavy duty work chasing out the floor for the plumbers who are back on site Monday. John is back doing his work in the school room.

The cellar is still work in progress and we have had a multitude of volunteers working on it this week. We've had to strip all walls back to the basic concrete and replaced the ceiling. Our resident builder Peter Keen has made new stairs.

Time is pressing now and we need your help more than ever even if it is just making tea for the volunteers. It’s dusty, dirty and fun! So please put on your overalls and a smile and pop down and see us. We are around in the morning so please turn up if you can.

Marilyn