The four of us gathered at M as planned. After some discussion we added
a couple of thinish courses and laid on such coverbands as we could lay hands
on. Barry left us at lunchtime and we started on finding and adding
copes. We agreed amongst ourselves that it was best to stop after the
first 10 so that we could get a view from others. Somewhat weary anyway,
we packed in at 2:30 having made a bit of progress on the next stretch.
There are a couple of issues. First of all, doubling the copes doesn’t
match the rest of the wall (Barry made the very valid point that this is the
stretch most walkers will notice as they approach the stile) but given the
width of the wall we don’t have any alternative that I can think of.
Secondly, we don’t have much of anything left in the way of coverbands to
complete the rest of this stretch let alone enough river rock to complete the
copes. This might mean that, by the time we reach the gateway, we’ll be
walling in a different style. The width is an issue as it tends to point
towards heftier walling stone which is now in short supply (no problem at all
with fill!). I guess there’s little alternative but to bash on and complete
the copes on the stretch that already has coverbands, leaving the ‘what next?’
solution until we get the remainder of the wall to full height. Any
alternative suggestions would be welcome before next week.
Chris G.
No Wallers:4
When we took this part of the wall down there were two courses of copes - all river cobbles - a double row on the bottom and a single row on top. Very different from the rest of the wall, but a solution as Chris suggests to the problem of the wall’s width.
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