On a typical grey and damp May Bank Holiday, Jak, Lynda, Graham, Jerry and Angus headed back to Ash Hall Lane to replace the second stile at the lower side of the grass field, where it borders the Christmas tree plantation. As with the previous work, today's efforts were made possible by donations to CROWS. A big 'thank you' to all our supporters.
The job started with a bit of a carry from the road to the worksite, under the watchful gaze of a herd of cattle in the adjacent field. They seemed hopeful that we were bringing feed. Mmm! - wishful thinking on their part!
Once at the stile, Lynda and Angus set off through the Christmas tree plantation to where the path crossed the Water Greave Lane, turning right towards Great Greave Farm. The plan was to inspect this path to where it entered the farm, then head down towards Far Slack and fit grab poles at a stone stile in Blackshaw Clough.
The blue circles show the two worksites. The shaded turquoise area shows a large, boggy section at the bottom of a grass field.
Where Water Greave Lane becomes a footpath and follows the drystone wall between two fields, it turns into a boggy morass (turquoise on map) that forced us up to the top of the field in order to reach the other side. Unfortunately, making this section passable is beyond the scope of CROWS. It has been in this condition for several years and will require significant work to successfully drain the waterlogging.
Once at the stone stile, we fitted two grab posts, firmed-up some of the stonework and cut back some of the brambles, to make the passage over the stone stile much easier. We will revisit this section next month and cut-back the vegetation from the farm to the clough.
The stone stile near Blackshaw Clough.
Grab posts fitted and Lynda keen to head back to help the stile team!
Back at the stile, the going was tough - a sheep netting fence atop an old drystone wall made digging difficult! Jak, Jerry and Graham had cut back the fencing and removed the old stile, but everywhere they dug they hit stones . . . big stones!
Looking towards Water Greave Lane - the stile to be replaced..
Jerry battling to remove the old treadboard With the old step removed we were able to enlarge the original holes to take the new treadboard support legs, although this took much longer that expected due to several large stones and a layer of heavy, sticky clay. Fortunately, the stones and the clay provided ideal packing material for the new step-legs.,
Jak packing the treadboard legs into place.
With the treadboard in place, we excavated two holes for the side-uprights which would support the cross-rails and the sheep netting. Again, stones from the old wall caused problems, but we battled on, embedded the uprights and installed long cross-rails to link fence posts and stile side-posts (see pictures that follow).
New side-uprights in place. Lynda fixing the cross-rails.
The finished job. Lynda testing access and egress!
This job took longer than expected but the end result was worth all the hard work. We will return to fit a slightly longer treadboard as the buried stones made it impossible to get the support legs exactly where we wanted them.
As we carried the tools back up to the road, the cattle were still there, still waiting, still hungry . . . and still disappointed!
What! Still no food !!!!!
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