The first flush of enthusiasm resulted in the clearing of the ‘upper room’ - a single story room which was probably the original dwelling - there is a fine example of a traditional Cypriot stone fireplace in one of the corners. Two truck loads of soil and concrete rubble were hand carried out by a mixed team including the two Adreas’s.
This part of the house had a skim (and I use that term accurately!) of concrete applied over a version of the traditional roof construction (round or octagonal timber beams, reeds, a layer of brushwood, soil and clay capping) which had already been enhanced with flattened 44 Gal drums. The concrete used had little cement in it and rounded aggregate up to 50% of the skim thickness in diameter. When the beams rotted there was insufficient strength in the concrete to support itself and it collapsed wholesale. Clearing the rubble revealed the squashed minutiae of daily life (furniture, crockery etc) and an attractive flagged floor, with the odd bit of impact damage from falling concrete.