As everyone knows Grand Design projects have a habit of going over time and over budget.  Ours is not struggling to be an exception. But the building  is enjoying its new plaster, first stabilising coats of paint and giving us a glimpse of how it will look. We’re testing colours, restoring the mahogany vestibule, repairing and replacing deep skirting along with other little gems so you wouldn’t notice. But possibly the singularly most worrying piece of work has been completed. The vault door, all one and a half tons of it, has left the building.

Our first thought was that the vault door was a great legacy piece and as such should be left in place. However, the risk to life and limb it presented was too much of a worry, and it obstructed access to the wine cellar; totally unacceptable. So it’s gone. In a guerrilla operation that resembled the Italian Job more than Restoration Man It made its way up the high street and eventually on to a weigh-in at the scrap yard. But the Vault still retains its character and with unfettered access to the cellar, will not be short of wine.