Meanwhile the other en-suite bathroom has become a builders refuge

But at least the new wet room is coming together well.

Finally, we are making progress in decorating the top floor, with carpet underlay down, it starts the feel like a room.

All these problems with the building have put us a few months behind. Grrr.

...and the South wall has been tanked and rebuilt, ready for plastering (once it dries)

Having fixed the roof leaks, the new ceiling has gone up. Looking North this time.

Whilst all the work is going on on the floor above, we are still making progress with the bathroom.

Pipes are being run for the new shower, whose drains will be sat below floor level.

The end wall being rebuilt, ready for the damp proofing to be applied

The ceiling above the newly found rot has also suffered terrible leaks at some stage, but it is all dry now, and we could not recreate them. Quite likely to be the same gutter problem.

Uh-oh.

More rot found in a different corner, behind a skirting board.

Fortunately, this was found to be old and dead. But just to be safe, the new skirting boards will be treating just in case.

The top floor of the tower looking very sorry for itself. The end wall has had to be cleaned back to the brick, before being sprayed for the root and woodworm, and then being retanked, and rebuilt.

The ceiling has all come down, allowing inspection of the roof leak.

After much trials with a hose on the roof, we narrowed it down to, of all stupid things, the gutters being blocked, allowing water to overflow under the lead and cascade down the walls.

Fortunately, this leak also explained three other patches of persistent damp in the castle.

All this expense just because gutters were not kept clear....

Huge chunks of rusted steel lift off the joist.

The good news (such as it is) is that the engineer is happy this is not structural, but we have to solve teh leak.

We decide to remove all the old ceiling so as to better inspect to the roof from underneath.

The rust has eaten away about half the thickness of the top of the joist.

This is clearly a leak that has been going on for decades without fixing.

Lifting a section of the rotten floor under the leak shows that the RSJ is clearly rusting quite badly.

Time to call our local structural engineer again, as this steel joist holds up the top floor of the tower.

Removing a section of ceiling shows that the roof (which sits just above that wooden board) has celarly been leaking for some time.

The thin veins of rot are hidden in the plaster, and seem to have covered the whole wall.