St Cuthbert's Primary School

Graham and Barry arrived at the playing fields to be greeted with bright sunshine pouring rain. Thankfully a cup of coffee and a sit in the car drove the bad weather off and they were able to do a bit of walling. Here are the results.

No. of wallers: 2
Gid Ref:  SE 15729 65925

The Oscars and St Cuthbert's Primary School - Sports Field Wall

Like our colleagues in the AONB Conservation Volunteers group we attended the Harrogate & District Volunteers Oscars ceremony on Friday 28 October, at the Old Swan Hotel in Harrogate, to hear we had been successful in winning the "Environment Volunteer of the Year" award. 

Tony. Matthew, Richard H & Richard P

  

After the excitement at the Oscars event, it was back to further work on the Sports field wall, but not before we had a display of the "certificate" and "trophy" with the team in their work clothes.

Mitch, Richard H, Richard P, Matthew & Tony

Many thanks to Richard P for obtaining copies of the certificate for all the group members. We also wish him well as he makes his final appearance on Nidderdale walls before he moves to Rutland.

At close of play around the Elm tree gap

 

The finished top gap

Someone forget to collect the trophy

Tony

St Cuthbert's Primary School - Sports Field Wall

Today we welcomed back Richard Plummer before he makes a final move to Rutland. The other team members were Barry, Matthew, Mitch, Richard H and Tony.  The team was split into two groups - one to complete the top gap and the other to rebuild a collapsing section of the wall around a mature elm tree.

Matthew and the two Richards tackle the top gap

Barry, Mitch and Tony get to work on removing the cemented toppers embedded in the tree

After stripping the wall back, the rebuild gets under way

Just the toppers to place on the top gap at close of play

The "elm tree" gap at close of play

Tony

St Cuthbert's Primary School - Sports Field Wall

We return with a team of six (Catriona, Graham, Matthew, Richard, Roderick and Tony) for further work on the sports field wall.

Work gets underway on the the middle gap around the tree

Catriona calls time for the lunch break

 

Meanwhile at the top gap, Graham assess how much of the wall will need to be taken down

and here is the result later in the day

The finished middle gap at close of play

 

At the top gap by close of play 

Tony

Soggy St. Cuthberts

We welcomed a new waller this week, a Tuesday volunteer convert, Mitch.
Mitch joined Barry, Graham, Roderick  and myself in trying to get a bit further with the middle section of walling at St. Cuthberts.
Thankfully we were reasonably well sheltered from the anticipated rain by the tree we're currently working under.
We managed a couple or 3 courses before calling it a day in the hope of avoiding any more rain.
We then had a lovely time sliding out of the now very slippery field.

 

The start of the day

By Lunch time

By mid afternoon

 The end of the day

Richard H.

Grid Ref: SE 15729 65925

Wallers: 5

St Cuthbert's Primary School - Sports Field Wall

The task here is to rebuild at least three collapsed sections of the boundary wall. The team today was Barry, Catriona, Graham, Richard and Tony.
 

Bottom gap

Middle gap

Top gap

 
It was decided to tackle the middle gap which had been caused by a very large sycamore tree. It was therefore necessary to strip down both sides of the wall to foundation level and rebuild a curved section to avoid the tree roots.

The first task is to separate the cemented toppers

The curve starts to take shape with a bridge across the tree roots

The work area was taped off as schoolchildren, teaching staff, and grounds maintenance staff may use the field while the work is ongoing.  Today there were no horses to worry about.

At close of play

Tony