Mount Pleasant Update

In January last year the current owners of the Mount Pleasant chapel, Russell and Lyn, presented a proposal that invited New Mills Town Council to safeguard community access to the graveyard and Sunday School at Mount Pleasant. The proposal described how the council could offer current and most importantly future owners or residents of the chapel, access from Aldersgate in return for the residents agreeing to open the gates on Spring Bank to give access to the grounds for the community. Access from Aldersgate would be strictly limited to friends and family of any residents and could be either restricted to pedestrians or include a car. The only entrance for public access would be via the existing main gates and steps on Spring Bank. The proposal would also give the council the opportunity to raise some income via a rental fee. All of this could be written into a rental agreement.

The reasons behind this proposal are twofold. First and most importantly, to Lyn and Russell, is to safeguard the public access to the space that they feel belongs to the community. The aim of the project has always been to create a space that can be enjoyed by the community. Secondly of course it would provide them with off road parking and an alternative route for bins.

A separate suggestion proposed by Russell and Lyn, is to create a small gate to the side of the chapel into the Town Hall car park to provide flat public access to the graveyard for the first time ever. All proposals would be at the expense of the current owners, Russell and Lyn.

The council agreed to put the proposals to the community and a public consultation was planned.
Since the initial idea was put forward, other suggestions of how to use the space have been proposed by members of the public and NMTC. Limited details of these suggestions and Russell and Lyn’s ideas have been published in the town councils’ minutes on 9th December 2024, but unfortunately the public consultation has not happened which has caused a lot of upset to some members of the community and to Russell and Lyn.

As some people may already be aware, and for transparency, since planning permission for the Mount Pleasant restoration was granted by High Peak Borough Council, Lyn has been elected as a member of New Mills Town Council. However, because of the conflict of interest she has not been party to any of the discussions so cannot provide any further details about the alternative proposals.

Details of Russell and Lyn's initial ideas as submitted in January 2024 can be seen in full here –

Proposal

For details of the other suggestions that are mentioned in the NMTC minutes please contact NMTC.

If you would like to leave feedback about Lyn and Russell’s ideas or the other suggestions, you can do that here –

Feedback Form

All of the feedback will be given to NMTC.

Hello

 Quick video, showing some of the reasons we built it...

House Complete: Full Montage

 Hi all. sorry it's been so long. But we're in :-)

We have a completion certificate for the house, work still continues on the Sunday School and that will last into next year. It (the Sunday School, or "venue" as we've begun calling it) does have a stage, a bar room, a kitchen/serving room and toilet block, all functioning. More on that as it happens (and it does feature in the montage), but this post is mostly about Mount Pleasant, the dream home we planned (twice) and finally realised.

Can't put in words how lovely the place is to live in. We're so glad we took the risk, even though it swallowed us for four years.

Here's the "Final" montage. Beware, it's quite long, best part of 32 minutes. I've used timelapse footage from lots of cameras (I remember posting about cameras back in the day), plus photos and videos taken by Lyn and myself over the four year project. I apologise for my video editing skills, but it pretty much describes the build from beginning to (sort of) end.

Hope you enjoy it... more soon.

Pathage

Well we (actually Lyn and builder Paul) discussed the subject of paths for many hours, finally settling on using road planings, which are created when roads are resurfaced. They are just smashed up roads really. It's a cheap and easy solution and so far looks very good. As I type, they are all whizzing back and forth in the rain with barrows full of the stuff, occasionally stopping to use a wacker plate to smooth and compact it.

Before:

During:

Later:

There will be an "After" pic, but it's now late in the day, and I'm keen to post something, anything, as it's been so long. 

We all know the news we're waiting for, and obviously there will be a joyous post on the day we get it.

More soon

Frontage

Front patio and rockery area is taking shape.

40 tons of good topsoil will arrive soon to fill the two corner areas. Lyn is looking forward to planting those up and putting in some artfully placed stones, and of course in a nod to the trees that populated this area for 30 years, these lovely silver birches..

Can't tell from this pic, but they are 4m tall.

The rest of the patio area will be porcelain tiles like the one in the first pic.

More soon

Update

Work has now started on the patio and decking which will surround the house, so that won't take too long.

I need to do a final montage of the time lapse stuff, which involves loads of photos and images from the last 3 years. I'll get on that right away.

Here's Lyn's latest photo, taken today on the way home from Benchmark Building Supplies in Romiley, to show our delight at finding the right tiles for the patio. A sample is in the background, but I think the photo just illustrates how well the colour goes with her eyes, and hair. Must be feeling romantic :)

Montage will appear here soon, don't miss it it'll be ace.

Laters

Silver beam

Hi all, well we'll be done with scaffolding very soon, but I thought I'd share these pics of the old steel beam that's supported the front facade for 130 years, now in its shiny silver coat. There's a bit of pointing to finish off, then this lot can be moved to the north wall so that can be repaired.

In other news:

• We get our first two bedrooms carpeted on Tuesday, the rest will wait til the ensuite in the master bedroom is tiled, mid-November.
• Hot water is now a thing in our house
• Final second fix begins next week
• Our posh glass balustrade for the landing arrives on Monday
• We think we'll be living there from next weekend, albeit sleeping in one of the carpeted bedrooms, not the master one.
• Furniture will be brought from storage slowly, as we'll be doing it ourselves and we're a bit broken for heavy lifting

More soon :-)