Posted by Woll on September 14, 2011 at 02:37:17 user Woll.
Whilst in the Lake District to attend the Arthur Ransome's Maps seminar, I managed to make my first visit to The Dogs' Home.
It was an extremely damp day, with continuous pouring rain. No thunder and lightning though, and no seals that I could see. The path was a rocky stream with water sluicing down from the beck.
It is in quite good repair. The walls seem solid enough, just needing a bit of lime mortar pointing here and there, if you were actually living in it. The ridge board has rotted away at one end, against the chimney, and the tiles have slipped a little, so you can see a 2-foot slit of sky from inside, but the purlins are OK so the roof is not going to fall down anytime soon.
The outside is very like AR describes it, but the interior is not quite the same as I recall from 'The Picts and the Martyrs'. It is actually quite a tall building, with the remains of the joists of a first floor still visible, half way up the walls, so it must have had 2 levels at one time. As I recall from TPATM, the roof was much lower and the beams that the hammocks were hung from were quite large, more like the 12-inch or bigger constructional timbers of a barn, rather than the small 3 by 2-inch floor joists that are there now. I did find another smaller building further up the hillside, that is very derelict now, but more like the external size as it appears in the illustrations. You can see both on OpenStreetMap: Map showing The Dogs' Home