Footings and holes in the walls

The tower has had a real onslaught of building work today with, at one stage eight men working hard on it.
At the back of the building excavators Chris and Tom are digging out the footings for the annex and retaining walls. Recent rain and my stone cleaning efforts had made the area very muddy. Digger driver Chris said the boulder clay into which he is currently digging is the hardest he has ever had to dig. Our admiration for the tower's original builders is all the greater.
This is one of six large holes being made inside the tower to take heavy steel beams across the width of the tower which will support the first floor. The first floor will go in before the ground floor, to avoid heavy lifting machinery damaging the ground floor.
One of the completed beam sockets. Note how the large stones inside the wall are mortared in. These would be loose in a less well built building.

The steels were ordered this morning and should be here later this week. Another thing ordered today is the lift - important to get this right as it passes through the floors and the tank base in an unforgivingly vertical shaft.