By Jack
When we took over The Bull, the building was already four hundred years old. Most of that age was in the bones (oak beams, brick fireplaces, the floor that slopes the wrong way in the snug) and most of the problems were in everything else (the plumbing, the wiring, the heating, the rooms upstairs).
The brief to the builders was simple. Keep everything anyone would notice. Change everything no one would notice.
The beams stayed. We treated them, but they are the same beams. The four open fireplaces stayed. The wonky floor stayed. The 17th-century stone fireplace in the main bar (the one you can fit a small adult into) stayed.
The kitchen was gutted and rebuilt. The rooms upstairs were rebuilt one at a time, each kept open while we worked on the others. The boiler was rebuilt twice (long story). Floors were levelled where the slope was a hazard and left alone where the slope was character.
The thing we are most pleased with is that you cannot really tell. You walk in and it feels like an old pub. You sleep upstairs and it feels like a new room. Both are true.
