Revisiting old shortcuts

Wood and bricks seems very hard and sturdy. But very few things don't become fluid when you apply time. Well, time and gravity in this case. For convenience of use, lots of old houses have had a tie beam cut through, or a groud cill chopped to let a door in. In this case, it's one of those ground ties (a wooden piece the links two posts feet together, across the inside of the building).

Braces were poorly and the groud tie was absent, so the building had moved quite considerably to one side. We managed to anchor one post from the outside and reestablish some verticality with a big ratchet strap. but that's not an acceptable situation. Someone clever had a good idea. 

I had to solidly fix a big oak foot the the bottom of the post AND the ground cill. Both sides. Those pieces of metal have been made on purpose to hold an underground cable tie, so it's not in the way and is still achieving the original function of a wooden ground tie. 

Bits of brickwork. Most importantly, I lack any photo of the cable or the finished work. Sorry. might be added one day.