This is Phill & Meryl at the St Andrew's Night Ball in Miri, Sarawak, 2000. Their story is told on these pages, and hopefully will continue as the year’s progress.

Phill is currently a manager of a US based diving company. Having spent 11 years in the Royal Navy as a diver, and a number of years diving in the North Sea, he has now moved to Brunei, presumably to get some warmth! There he met Meryl, an English Teacher, and they have a 17 month old daughter Catherine. In 1992 Phil decided to buy and renovate a Tower House in Scotland. The following is the story, largely in his own words....

Basically I started looking for a small Scottish Tower / L Plan Castle to restore in 1992 and although there are lots, and I mean lots', within a 50 to 75 mile radius of Aberdeen I found I could not purchase one for a reasonable price (£30k to £45k) - prices seemed to go up proportionally with how much interest you showed, or if we did seem to be getting ahead with a particular purchase I would be informed by Historic Scotland (Ancient Monuments) on enquiring about a grant to assist with the rebuild, that the Tower / Castle was not considered to be of any historic importance and no grants were available. However, if I did decide to build, they (Historic Scotland / Ancient Monuments) would require me to carry out (at my expense) a detailed site survey to record every detail of the structure / foundations prior to starting any work on the site, this of course to be carried out by a professional body with costs in the region of £5k.

So after 3 years of heart ache and a final bitter blow with a Tower called Balquaine (now not too sure of the spelling - but it’s just a mile or so North of Inverurie) where the asking price jumped from £30k to £80k over-night, I thought “I know more about Scottish Castles than most, therefore I can build my own Tower.” I based my plans on a 16th century style as it needed to be harled, I could not afford to build in stone.

I did all the basic drawings of what I wanted, contacted John Wetten-Brown (a Glasgow based architect and a good friend) and had him make up the drawing to submit for Planning Permission and approval prior to actually purchasing the land.

This we did. We had 4 objections to the build, 3 from local residents and 1 from the Green Party. All were squashed by the Planning Committee in about 5 minutes flat - as they said it was wonderful that someone was building to a true Scottish design in Scotland. Once all this was passed we bought the land, a little over 2 acres in a small glen. Cost me £22k in all - a good deal. It was virgin land and had never ever been built on before. Two small burns run through the land and form 2 of the 3 site boundaries (the site is a long triangular shape).

One of the burns was diverted 25 years ago to make a small lake (not big enough for a loch yet??). This we intend expanding at a later date - hence the small bridge I have built ready for this.

Obtaining Building Authority Approval was not as easy as obtaining Planning Permission. The problems we encountered were to do with trying to build a Tower House in the true 16th century style to 20th century building regulations - we had problems with window sizes (gun loops were not considered to be windows???), extra stairs - one spiral stair was not sufficient to meet Fire Safety Regulations. Actual height of the tower - collapse calculations needed for buildings over 3 storeys and the foundations had to be changed to a “Raft form” as they would not accept as Strip Foundations due to the high water table on the site. This amounted to £12.5k, the most expensive cost to-date. All the above problems, plus others, we overcame with the help of the Planning Officer in Turriff - he renamed rooms and added small internal fire walls to meet the Building Regulations and we were able to have a second stairway in hidden in the thickness of the double walls (original Towers had wall of 6 ft thickness and we have incorporated this style in ours). Without his help our project would not have got beyond the planning stage.

We eventually started work, actual building, in 1997 completing the Log Store. This we built ourselves after attending night school to learn how to build in block work and random rubble. I learnt to slate by reading and asking questions of a local slatter in Turriff.

In 1998/1999/2000 we completed the Garage (in the form of a traditional Doocot), Tower foundations, clearing the site, draining and deepening the original pool, building the bridge and weir, running in mains water and electricity, cutting down about 50 trees and laying a field drainage system to try and dry out as much of the land as possible.

What are we going to do next - all depends on money - we have not borrowed a penny, just saved up and paid cash as we have carried out the work.

August 2003. Up-date

Quite a lot of time has passed since the original overview was written, but not much in the way of progress unfortunately. The overall plan is the same; however, it’s taken us a little longer to gather the money needed to fund the project than originally planned. The knock on effect of this was that Planning & Building Permission ran out in August 2001 and as we had not actually carried out any work on the site there was no way we could get an extension. We will now have to go through the full application procedures again once we are ready to re-commence the building program.

Having said all that, we have not been idle. I have managed to locate and buy more of the red sandstone (abandoned farm buildings) and much to our joy locate and purchased a beautiful red sandstone archway in wonderful condition. This will be used in the vaulted cellar as the doorway between the kitchen and dining room.

Stanley Duguid, a local resident aged 75 years, has been doing a great job of looking after the site for us over the past 3 years and has ensured that no vandalism has taken place, mind you it is very much overgrown now and we are still having problems of water ingress into the lift well pump room – have to get specialist engineers to look at this for me before we commence the final Tower build to wind and water tight.

So, where do we go from here? I have up-dated the “Diary” section to reflect our future plans. Keep watching this space as I will add to it again soon.

Yours aye – Phill & Meryl

December 2008. Up-date

Where does time go – I’m sure that in the 16^th century they never took this long to build a Fortified Tower House..!!

Firstly I should bring you up to-date as to where we are now. We left Brunei in 2001 and moved to the UK where the family is based, South England, seems we are as far as possible from where the Tower is being built and me personal, I’m working in the Middle East for an American Oil Company. Everything is being done by e-mail and by phone. I’m very lucky to have a good builder who is sympathetic to my needs and an architect / Site Manager who has restored more than 8 Scottish Castles with the last being Stonneypath near Edinburgh.

So what has happened since I last up dated the story, for a couple of year we did not do anything on site just maintaining the land and continued saving money. In 2007 we made the start on digging out the pool extension so that the water could flow from the original pool through the bridge I had built and out over a small weir to re-join the original burn. While doing this I planted a few trees and had the old rutted road levelled with hard core and the land around the Tower foundations stabilized ready to accept scaffolding. During the slack period the land had started to return to a jungle and much time was taken up in clearing it all again ready to commence the Tower build proper in 2008.

After vetting a few builders and other trades I took on a young Scottish builder – Graham Buxton – who was very enthusiastic about the project and along with him and my architect John Wetten brown we commenced the building of the Tower in February 2008. Initially progress was slow as we had to make remedial repairs to the foundation and also the new Building Warrant has stated that the cavity wall had to have a cavity of 80mm an increase of 30mm on the previous Building Warrant, this meant Graham had to extend the original foundations which was not an easy task and subsequently an expensive undertaking. Having overcome this hurdle work eventually started in early April only to be held up again by the Cast Stone manufacturer having problems with the mouldings and getting the correct colouring for the stonework. While all this was taking place I was making contracts with a spiral stair company to have the main stair case cast in sections to look like Turriff Red Sandstone, Also contracts with an under floor heating company, taking on a company to supply a Ground Source Heat Pump as I wanted the Tower to be as Green as possible. With the Tower having three live fires plus the Arga kitchen stove I needed to employ a specialist chimney company to design all the flues – not cheap I can tell you. I wanted the inside of the Tower to be as authentic as possible so I went to the expense of ordering Caithness Flagstones for the kitchen/dining room in the vaulted cellar and also for the Gt Hall floors which had to be compatible to under floor heating.

As the Gt Hall will be the show room of the Tower I wanted a special fireplace and I spent quite a number of weeks trawling through all my old photos of Scottish Castles I had visited over the years, some 600 in all, to find just the right fireplace for our Tower. It had to be 2.5 metres wide by 1.5 metres tall and I eventually found the one we wanted at Crichton Castle. I then sent photos to a company called Manor House Stone who, I must say, have made a wonderful job in reproducing an exact copy for me, all that is left now is for Graham to install it once he gets up to the Gt Hall level.

During 2008 work has continued on the site with the installation of the sewage works, the underground oil tank (a back up to the GSHP system) as there is no gas in the area and the building of the Tower itself. It was hoped to be at the Wind & Water Tight stage by December 2008 but with one of the worst summers for rain on record and now early snow the project it months behind schedule and as you can see from the photos we are just now only coming up to the 1^st floor, Gt Hall level. Still a very long way to go. Looking on the bright side it has allowed me to save more funds for the project as with everything else costs are rising daily, recession – what recession. I would hope to have the Tower completed and liveable by the end of summer (if we get one) 2009. Watch this space.

I have up-dated the Diary below to reflect the status as now.

DIARY

1992
Started looking for a Tower House in the Aberdeen area to renovate. Not much success for the required money.

1995
Decided to build own Tower House from scratch. Started looking for a suitable plot. Found a plot of just over 2 acres in a small glen known as the Den of Gask. Contacted John Wetten-Brown and got him to make drawings to submit for planning permission.

1997
Having obtained Building Authority Approval, started building. Attended night school to learn how to build in block work and rubble. Built Log store as a result. Learnt how to slate the roof by reading and asking questions....

1998/1999/2000
Completed the Doocot, which will be used as a garage. Laid the Tower Foundations. Cleared the site. Drained and deepened the original pool, built the bridge and the weir. Ran in mains water and electricity, and cut down about 50 trees (not very 'green' but necessary, but I will be re-planting more soon). Laid a field drainage system to dry out as much of the field as possible.

2000
No more major work this year, we will have John Wetten-Brown do some stone carving over the doors on the Doocot & Log Store.

2001/2002/2003/2004/2005/2006
Just general site maintenance - save money. Look to finding more farms with Turriff red sandstone to purchase.

2007
Major landscaping work - Extend the pool, re-route the burn, plant trees. Prepare the site for the start of the main building program.

2008/2009
Start the Tower build to wind & water tight. This to include all external work to the Tower. Complete all the internal fittings in the Tower, complete all the landscaping and finalizing the site for rental in the initial 1^st year or so or until I retire from the Offshore Industry and also convince Meryl that Scotland is a nice place to live and that ‘Cold is just a state of mind that can be overcome by wearing more clothes..!!’