Last day at Ivin Waite.

Arriving in support mode to collect barrows etc to return to the Bewerley store, and braving the close attention of a dozen curious heifers, I walked from Ivin Waite to the walling site which is concealed in a cleft of the hill. The ringing of hammer on stone echoed round the craggy amphitheatre, bringing to mind a scene from The Hobbit, and indeed from a distance the Wallers appeared diminutive. Graham, Rich & Roderick were actively gathering and shaping candidate toppers from the quarry spoil, heavy work that on the osteopath's advice I had had to decline. The newly built wall corner looked impressively robust, the assembled toppers uniformly aligned ready to complete the final few yards of a fine job in a fine location. The heifers were positively drooling.

Barry S.
No. of Waller: 3

---

Round and About

Birstwith

Road closures on the way from Ripon to Pateley meant a bit of a detour so I extended the detour to see how the second of our Birstwith walls is holding up.

As we left it

How it looks now

Link to blog post from last time we were there

 

Hackfall

I was at Hackfall the other weekend and noticed that someone has effected a repair on the car park wall that we had offered to rebuild. No comment.

Rich.

Toppers on

Just Rod and I this week, with only a few stone needing to be placed before the toppers could go on.
The dew on the ground proved to be our first enemy as it interacted deviously with the bottom of Rod's wellies and he ended up staring up at the sky twice on our way down the hill. This prompted a hunt for a glove lost in the process.
The next problem was to find five or six meters worth of toppers since we only had enough to do a small section of our wall.
Rod completed the section running from the kissing gate down by judicious use of hammer and chisel whilst I went hunting the hillside for suitable stones. We left with a few more meters of toppers still needing to be found.

Just a morning

Graham and Rod got the wall up to just below topper height in the morning and sensibly deicide to call it quits as the weather took a turn for the worse.

The end of the day (taken a week after)

Richard H.
No. Wallers: 2

Really quite late

Graham, Rod and I  started another stint at Ivin, which was displaying it's more usual temperament; grey and glowering, rather than this summers rather splendid sunny complexion. On the way down we noticed a new addition to the landscape - a sign post telling us of the local bird population. We're not sure if this is AONB work or not - I should really head over to their blog to find out but will leave it till after I've written this post just in case I get carried away and never return to this long overdue entry.

Despite the constant threat of rain, which really never materialised, we got a couple of courses shy of topper hight and trudged back up the hill where Rod and Graham modelled the new fixture for your viewing pleasure.

 Sunny Ivin Waite

Morning

Break time

Lunch time

End of the day

Rod and Graham posing in front of the new landmark

Richard H.

No. Wallers: 3

Late Late Late show

Rod, Graham and I did some walling a few weeks ago. It's been so long that I've forgotten how it went although it seems to be coming back as I write. Rod joined us late due to a rush of people wanting to look at his house whether they want to buy it or not we're not sure. I think we saw some walkers some of whom were from Eagle Hall down the road. They mentioned a wall of theirs that needed some work and I gave them our details since it's on the Nidderdale way. I haven't heard anything since, I hope that doesn't indicate their opinion of our work.

Break Time

Break Time

Lunch time

End of the day

End of the day

Richard H

No. of waller: 3

Hammer and Cycle

Another glorious day for a cycle ride interrupted by a few hours of walling. Graham and I braved the heat for a good long while but we didn't manage to do the usual 5 hours, calling it a day when our brains were lightly coddled.
A couple of courses were added to the sterling work done by Tony last week, the fences were re-erected and we toddled on our merry way.

Richard H.
No. of Waller: 2

Two Cyclists

Graham, Tony and I met up at the wall to do some walling, 2 of us having arrived by bike. A walling group record I think, where the bikes outnumber the cars. It was pretty warm but not hot enough to really slow progress.
The smaller corner of the wall is nearly complete, barring toppers, and Tony put in a great stint clearing the ground for the wall returning up the hill.

I managed to rebuild the small drainage wall - although it may still require some work, so a pretty good day all told.

How Hill near Fountains - on my journey to Ivin

Graham's morning work and Tony's foundation clearing

Mid morning and after lunch on south side of the wall

North side and drainage wall

Wall return up the hill and nearly finished south side

North side and corner of wall

Tony standing above his days work

Richard H
No Wallers: 3.