13 August 2025 – Fixing the see-saw
Ever since we first viewed the property, the lowest tread on the stairs has always had a bit of movement to it. With the house move and then renovations going on upstairs in Bedroom 3, the extra traffic had caused it to become a lot worse. Luckily the carpet fitter for the bedroom (Fairweathers of Ashby-de-la-Zouch) is also a joiner and agreed to take a look at it for us. We’re glad he did!
The treads on the stairs appear to be original (maybe up to 200 years old…), and the left hand side of the tread had had woodworm at some point and also rotted where it touched the main supporting wall. The original design seems to be 2 parallel (-ish) stringers close to the centre of the treads with each tread end resting on thick cast iron nails driven into the walls, the whole assembly just sits on bare earth at the bottom. When we looked at the remains of the original tread we could see where the leading edge had been worn away with decades of use, definitaely an original piece of wood!
A “temporary” repair has been done many years ago securing the bottom tread to the wooden riser before and after it, as the support on the left hand side had long ago disappeared. There had also been a reinforcing plank nailed across the top of the rotten tread that we reused as the new replacement as it was still in good condition.w
We have retained the removed original tread as when we get the main beams dated with dendrochronology (are there any specialists out there in our area?) we will try to get this piece done as well. When the whole lot is restored we will get a nice piece of bullnosed oak cut to measure to match the rest
