Many hands

A good turnout this week meant parking became a little tight but Graham managed to squeeze into place with millimetres to spare and everyone’s car still has the correct paintwork in the correct place.
Graham, Catriona and Duncan worked on the first section of wall raising it a good few courses.
Clive came down to clear some more of the vegetation and we inspected what the wall does when it meets the gully - It goes right across it - as the photo below shows. We'll see if we feel like tackling this later!  
Rod and I continued with the foundations from last week. Rod was substituted at lunch time for Barry and by the end of the day we'd splashed our way to another course.

 The wall continued right through the gully - those bottom boulders are massive - this photo does really show the scale very well.

 

Rod putting in the last few bits of fill on the completed foundations

Second course completed

Four extra courses laid by Catriona, Graham and Duncan

Ditto from the other side

Richard H.

No. Wallers: 6

Gardening and Drainage and Foundations

Barry and I arrived to sunshine at Fogfield. Tree removal and foundation clearing were the order of the day and took up our morning stint. The afternoon was to be spent sorting out the drainage problem and re-setting the foundations. We were joined in our afternoon efforts by Graham.
Barry and I set about the drainage section which required a bit more wall to come down. after taking a few stones off we had a small calamity; a good few meters fell down of it's own accord. Graham did sterling work tidying up the resulting mess and excavating my jumper from the bottom of the pile.
We managed to get a drainage trench excavated channelled and gravelled and a fair amount  of foundations put back before the end of the day.

 After a bit more Gardening

Foundations cleared and the start of the drainage 

Drainage pipe in and (mostly) covered.

Foundations going in

Graham works to clear a new section of wall- and the cleared space for new foundations

Barry and I work at opposite ends and hope to meet in the middle - didn't managed it by the end of the day - on hold till next week!

Richard H
No. Wallers: 3

Very Soggy Fogfield

Catriona, Barry and I drove through a downpour and arrived at the Packhorse trail wall to find the foundations filled with water. A little drizzle accompanied us for the first couple of hour of the day, and we managed to get a mud covered foundation course in place, which matched our mud covered boots and mud covered trousers very well. As the weather improved we put a further 2 courses and a set of through stones in place and headed for home a little earlier than normal.

Richard H.
No. wallers: 3
Thanks to Barry for additional photos

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We've had a welcome and generous donation from Justin and Liz after our Hillend endeavours, so new equipment may be forthcoming!(R)


AN e-mail from Justin for - Barry's Volunteers:

You wanted to know when our donation had been sent.   Liz has now paid *** to Friends of AONB account with the reference 'Walling thank you'.  Let me know if there are any problems tracing this so that it is used for Barry's volunteers.  I'm attaching a photo I took of the group as they had tea and biscuits having completed the wall.  I realise that 'topping out' should really be alcoholic but they seemed happy and, of course were driving!

Fogfield

Four of us arrived at Fogfield House to start our new project on the Packhorse Trail. Clive and his two dogs welcomed us on a damp morning and after a few words we made our way to site. There are 3 stiles to rebuild and a good section of wall to go at.
Graham, Rod, Barry and I made a good start on the wall, but have to confess that we didn't do any building; all day was spent taking the wall down, a task made more difficult by the very soggy ground conditions, and the unhelpful weather.
Barry at the east end - not that sort of Eastend - had a small but steady stream to contend with, and by the end of the day looked like he had been making mud pies. He was in-fact digging a channel and sump in order to lay a pipe under the, to be, reconstructed wall in the hope that it'll aid it's longevity.
A small amount of taking down will be required next week prior to rebuilding.

Morning prior to demolition

Lunchtime

End of the day

Barry's hard and muddy work trying to alleviate the mini stream problem. 

Richard H.

No. Wallers: 4

Ended it at Hillend

A dry day in the midst of Noah's floods meant that Barry, Duncan, Catriona, Roderick and I were able to finish of at Hillend. With Justin providing us with buckets of fill and mugs of tea we were able to put some awkward stone into some awkward spaces and get some large flat copes in place.

The slithery nature of the site hasn't improved with the recent downpours so we're relived to have finished without anyone taking a sudden unplanned sit down in the mud.

Justin insisted we should leave him with the work of tidying up the unused stone despite our eagerness to slither and slide some more, so many thanks to him for providing the site and making our final day at Hillend a little bit shorter.

At break

Some of the gang at tea break

Lunch time

Rear of the wall at the end of the day

Front of the wall at the end of the day

Richard H.
No. Wallers: 6.