The relief work on this rammed-earth pillar was achieved by routing oregon planks which imparted the octagonal section within a square mould.
In January 1999 this relief work became no more

Looking northeast from the central room - the Temples strength is apparent before the rafters are placed.

December 3rd, 1998 - the poles rest for one more night before being lifted into place - a stirrup waits in the dwarf wall for the morrows meeting.

These delightful members arrived as 200mm square rough-sawn hardwood which we shaped and dressed to 4.5 metre octagonal posts.

December 4th, 1998 - the posts are vertical and the front beam is in place - there was a party that night !

Later on - there's the roof

Rains arrived in November, 1998 which was to prove the start of 8 months of wet weather. January 1999 was particularly abundant with three days of solid, driving torrential rain. The exposed faces of the pillars suffered 3 days of water constantly running down them. Eventually the moisture penetrated beyond the surface sealing and was sucked in , causing the earth to swell.

Over large areas the outer 20-30 mm was cast off as a serpent shucks outworn skin.

I still shudder to look at these pictures - but - see what we ended up with - it's an ill wind as they say, silver linings etc etc

The pillars were defaced with mattocks and rendered with a sand/cement mixture. The result was somewhat less attractive. We decided to face the pillars with sandstone - it took 7 months for the weather to relent sufficiently to undertake the work.

The task was long and finicky - each tile had to be drilled top and bottom for stainless steel rod locating pins and hooked into the render.

3 courses of tiles held together with the pins and ready for grouting.
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