£3 4 million project to renovate historic Northumberland house and gardens complete chroniclelive.co.uk - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from chroniclelive.co.uk Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
bel5ay hall was built in the greek revival style in the early 19th century, based on the temple of theseus in athens. its owners left the castle in the same grounds to move in on christmas day in 1817. now, though, the grecian architecture is under wraps for restoration, but it is offering visitors the unique chance to see the hall from another angle. so we have that view that nobody gets to see a once in a lifetime view of bel5ay hall. so why is this work going on now? so, basically, sir charles monck was inspired by a trip to greece 200 years ago. he wanted to create a hall in the same style, so put a really low pitched roof on. that kind of low pitch doesn t work in northumberland, so water ingress has been a problem for 200 years, so we now need to re roof the hall. 200 years isn t bad, though, is it? it s pretty impressive. there has been roofing work between then and now, but in practice this is the whole thing. replacing the roof is a mammoth task. the scaffolding alone took t