Marianne Cadio
This self designed experience took place in the southern part of Normandy in a castle called Chateauneuf-sur-Epte (for the river Epte which is visible from the castle walls). There, I spent 2 weeks learning about roofing, archeological digging, and many other things related to castle restorations! Here are some photos that I or one of my friends took during the experience.
One of the first things I was put to work on was preserving and finding remnants of the castle during different stages of its existence. The castle was originally constructed in 1097 to protect the Duchy of Normandy but has gone through many different owners since then. So, many of our work included searching for past foundations or artifacts from the many different owners.
Once areas were cleaned up, we began the carpentry and roofing aspect of the experience. We built supports for collapsing parts of the castle, and learned how to correctly size the wood parts. Once all the wood was cut correctly, we manually transported all the wood to the roof and began working using only hammers and saws on assembling the roof. This particular roof we worked on was an old barn that was in dire need of reroofing. While there were some moments where I was quite scared of falling, overall, I had a lot of fun learning about roofing and putting together this structure.
Here are some additional fun pictures!