Change of focus

It's been a while since the function room was mentioned. On May 30th it looked like

and there's been little point in photograping it since then because nothing has happened. All the work in the past weeks has been focussed on the bedrooms and old kitchen. With the bedrooms pretty well finished the work has begun to reinstate the floor of the function rooms and build the new wall between them.

Meanwhile the old plaster ceiling in the corridor beside the old kitchen was removed (it has to be replaced by fireproof plasterboard) and there was a lot of dust generated.
which gave this nice effect in the sunlight.
The other area where work has picked up again is the old lounge bar - soon to be the breakfast room. The old bar was taken apart. When the panelling was removed from the front, it revealed the original black and red panelling from 1946 when the bar was installed by Mary Walker's father. I have a picture of it, but it's on film.
The weather remains very hot and the air conditioner which I was very rude about here was in great demand in the bedrooms on Monday and Tuesday night. Last night we had three Italians, two Germans, two Glaswegians...

...and the long running debate about whether or not Mary Queen of Scots stayed at the Spread Eagle Hotel is over. I can now tell visitors with absolute sincerity that Mary Stuart stayed here.

OK, so it was Mary Stuart from Camberwell, London and she arrived on a motorbike, but we don't need to mention that do we?