When the roof fell in on my clay lump outbuilding

Our house in Norfolk came with two old outbuildings built of clay lump walls and pantiled roofs. I don't know how old they are. Perhaps 200 - 250 years old? Or not quite that much? One measures about 14 feet by 10 feet, with one door; the other is about 40 feet by 14 feet with five separate rooms and a loft above. When we bought the house twenty years ago we used the outbuildings for storage: garden tools, my junk etc.


The roof of the larger building had always been rather saggy at one end; and a little while ago I noticed that it had actually partly collapsed. Oh dear! What to do? First job was to cover it with tarpaulin to prevent rain getting in (since doing which barely a drop has fallen). Now I need to consider how to repair the roof. I've not tackled anything as major as this before.


It took quite some time getting the tarpaulin in place single handed. I took the above photo part-way through the proceedings.