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Merry Christmas! 2019 has been an amazing year at Cragend Farm. Our holiday accommodation business is up and running and we now have a flock of Cheviot sheep and a small herd of Rare Breed Whitebred Shorthorn cattle to look after as well as our chickens, peacocks and dogs. Our new arrival, Dax, a Border Collie dog, is now 1 year old, and training to be our trusty sheep do ...

The Renwick & Geddes family #team doing some Historic Buildings #volunteer work @cragend @Historic_Houses @JohnDeere  helping us to remove the RSJ from the Silo. It had been used to secure the turbine with straps whilst we repaired the floors. ...

Tree Dedication: The Storer family have lived in the Coquet Valley for over 300 years, and to celebrate this Rob and Helen Storer decided to dedicate a tree to the family past and present as part of our Scots Pine Stand at Cragend Farm. The trees are positioned on a high point on Cragend Farm. The tree furthest east has been dedicated to William Storer and all his forebears. ...

Interesting finds as we clear more of the Silo Tower: These items were found lodged behind the listed Gilkes machine and covered in pigeon poo! Once cleaned up we can see it is a very larger spanner and hook. ...

This is John our very brilliant joiner for the Silo repair work. He has been very helpful in thinking through what has been required for us to get the woodwork right for this historic listed building. He is looking particularly pleased with himself! The joys of working in a 4m x 4m tower. in this photograph, as he stands  on the scaffolding, in between the joist he is try ...

Artefacts found: The clearing out of the Silo continues as the repair work starts in earnest. These items were amongst many found whilst clearing out the window on the south side. Over the years it had been stuffed with barbed wire and metal, we thought, as a way to stop the animals (sheep, cows) getting to close to this window, but once we started to clear the larger debris, ...

The floor boards  The top floor of the Silo Tower was rotten, with wood worm, water damaged and falling apart, and we removed what was left of it, to replace it with new joists and floor boards. The scaffolding now has to be removed to the lower level so we can start to replace the second floor. When the rain finally stops work will resume. ...

Work has started to replace the joists in the Silo Tower at Cragend Farm. They are 4.3m long (14 feet x 11 inches x 4 inches imperial) long, heavy wooden beams to support the floors. There are 11 on each floor. Above you can also see the inside of the roof that was replaced in 2012. Our thanks to the Historic Houses Foundation for all their support. ...

Hard Graft - but worth it! It took 50 yellow buckets of debris (mainly pigeon poo and rotten wood) to fill the tractor bucket. Each bucket took 20 pulls on the rope to hoist it from the ba se of the Silo Tower to the maine entrance. Shaun dug out all the muck and Lou pulled the bucket to the surface and emptied it into the bucket. We had 2 tractor buckets full of metal, 4 of ...

Scaffolding in and ready for the next phase on the Silo: We would like to say a massive 'Thank you' to The Country Houses Foundation and CSL Services and Scaffolding for the #scaffolding that arrived today @cragend in order to repair the Grade II* Silo Tower. ...

We thoroughly enjoyed our visit to your fantastic farm on the Historic Houses tour on Tuesday. We both agree that it was the most interesting HHA visit we have ever done - and we have done many over the years! We had no idea of the extent of the Armstrong connection or what you have there, having visited Cragside on so many occasions in the past 50 years or so. And indeed looked down on the farm from the walks at Cragend quite recently. We particularly enjoyed ascending and descending the ladders to look at the hydraulic equipment and get an idea of how it all functioned, the beautiful and unusual buildings which had housed the cattle, and were intrigued by the contents of your "underground " loo! Peacocks and chicks, hens and a beautiful pet lamb added to the feel of the farm.

Shaun & Lou Renwick are keen to harness the farm's natural resources, using wood to heat their water, to cook with on a wood burning range, and to heat the houses on the Farm. Even if your house is not equipped to totally run on wood there are things you can do to make sure you are using the best quality wood for your fires.

Why use Seasoned Wood?

Seasoned wood is a definition for 'wood drying'. About 5% of the energy of the log is wasted through evaporation and heating the water vapour of damp logs.

Moisture effects the burning process with unburnt hydrocarbons going up the chimney, which can in time create 'sooting' in the chimney, with the possibility of a chimney fire, all of which requires specialist sweeping.

Drying the wood before burning reduces moisture content in the wood before it is used for burning,

Air drying is the most traditional method, and it takes time. usually over and above 2 years! The fire will use less energy to burn the log if the water content is below 20%. Therefore is can give OUT more energy in the form of heat!

Cragend Farm endeavours to provide their customers with the best seasoned wood possible.

if you would like further information on the process of burning wood please contact us and we will be happy to help.

Why seasoned wood?

Thank you so much Lou and Shaun for a great holiday break on your farm at Cragend last week. East Cottage was a super place to stay. Very comfortable accommodation with everything we needed for self-catering and situated next to the beautiful Cragside National Trust gardens. It was super for our dog with fields to walk across as well as a secure fenced place for her to run off lead! Such interesting history too about the farm and how you have restored the buildings, the Victorian silo and so much else of the past farming life at Cragend. We look forward to returning! J&M Nottingham.

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