The great eight.

The largest contingent for some while;  Andy, Barry, Chris, Duncan, Graham, Rob, Roderick and Val, eight in all.

Another fine Wednesday in January, three in a row!

By mid morning, Barry and Andy had completed the toppers on the section up to the stile, so achieving the original objective started just over eleven years ago.  Apart from the overall achievement, the last section does look very good.

With the wallers available, the next section from stile to gate was transformed. Apart from stripping down another large chunk of the wall and removing a significant amount of ivy, two courses plus were completed near to the stile involving some large stones and a massive amount of fill.  Part of the wall has been left virtually intact, and whilst it is very solid it is also very wide. The sections either side are being built to match and although looking good  will create something akin to Hadrian's Wall rather than your standard Yorkshire version!  All in all, a very productive day.

Graham D.

No Waller's: 8

Filling the Gap

 As is often the case all the good stone had been used lower down the wall so the last two courses involved a lot of trimming and shaping.  Then, as predicted, we (Roderick and Duncan) didn’t have enough toppers to finish the wall so we both started looking for buried toppers or stone that could be made into toppers. 

Duncan started attacking a huge three tonne monolith which had a useful looking overhang but gave up after twenty minutes. 

Meanwhile Roderick found a massive buried stone that we managed to lever out. We subsequently broke this into four pieces which allowed us to complete the wall.  The final line of toppers is somewhat uneven but we daren’t trim them in case they split and became unusable.

Wall at the end of last week

 

Rod unearthing a whopper - subsequently made into 4 toppers

More topper material

A finished Gap!

Duncan S.

No wallers:2

A short Ladder

Another glorious day at Markenfield.  Six of us, Barry, Andy, Rob, Chris, Val and Graham.  Good progress on toppers although getting more difficult to find the right stones. However, should be finished next week . Barry brought along a short ladder to help lift a rather heavy and awkward cheekend topper into place.
Significant progress made on clearing the next section including the removal of a deep routed elder. The foundation course was also completed.  Val was really pleased to lay some stones having spent almost all of two weeks taking down!

Start of the day

Andy adding toppers

Rob removing elder root

New section foundations - Rob and the ladder

Barry surveys the new foundations

Graham D.

No. wallers: 6.

A new year at Markenfield

A new year at Markenfield ; we started there in Autumn 2011!

Barry, Andy, Chris, Val and Graham spent a splendid January day back at Markenfield; nature provided four hares, four red kites, a buzzard, a frog and a mouse.  In return we did some walling.
Given the numbers we took it in turns to do toppers and start dismantling the next section.  The toppers had been delivered as promised and in the cool light of day were an interesting mixture.
Progress on both was strangely slow; toppers took a bit of getting started, while we worked out the best level, and the dismantling was more soil than stone removing..

By the end of a tiring day, we'd completed about half of the toppering and made a sizeable hole in the next section of wall.

Deciding what to do about the toppers

A new section to play with

 

New Toppers on

 

New Toppers on

Graham D.

No. Wallers: 5

First Session of the Year

Roderick and Duncan arrived at Brookside Farm on a clear frosty morning to find the ground frozen solid. 

Arriving at the collapsed section of wall a clear bulge could be seen which Andrew the farmer later explained was caused by a mini landslide. Our first decision was how much of the wall to take down as a partial repair had already been started. Since part of the ‘bulge’ was sound we just dismantled the repaired section plus the loose and unstable stones on each side, although this was later expanded unexpectedly!

By late morning the cold wind eased and Andrew’s sheep came to join us in the field. 

Initially we thought that we could complete the job in one day but as the sun went down over the horizon it became clear that it would need a second visit to complete the repair.