A typically soft South Pennine day -(aka grey sky, low cloud and a fine penetrating, cold drizzle)- for Billie and Frank H to be working on the path (Hebden Royd 045) that goes down from the Mytholmroyd end of Wood Hey Lane towards Carr Lane. The tasks were the repair and stabilisation of stiles.
Stile 1:
This stile had two rotten treadboards and a slightly loose upright.
 |
| One treadboard in a particularly dangerous state. The other looks sound but is mainly mush! |
 |
| Work nearly done: New treadboards in place and left hand side-upright braced by short cross rails. |
Repair tasks often have to work around deficiencies in the original structure! This was no exception but the original step legs were good so the treadboards are level as are all the cross-rails.
Stile 2:
This was situated about 100 m further down the path and required some care in its repair.
Several problems here:
Final outcome:
*The lower treadboard is rotten.
*The right hand upright is broken at ground level.
*The left hand upright is slightly loose.
*The cross-rails are not quite horizontal.
* Original right-hand upright removed, decayed section cut off, then upright re-embedded with short grab pole (just visible)
*All cross-rails removed then replaced so horizontal and parallel but with a longer top rail which linked both side uprights and the straining post on the far right (barely visible). Alignment was an issue but the structure is stronger!
*The left hand upright has been firmed-up then braced with a diagonal anchored by a stob.
Not the most aesthetically pleasing of structures but it scores highly on stability - there's not the hint of a wobble! However, a total re-build may be needed in year or two . . . this is a very, very damp corner of the wood!
Stile 3:
As a final flourish we worked on a stile on the opposite side of the track to stile 1. A treadboard, mainly buried by mud on the up-slope side, was far more rotten than first inspection would suggest - once excavated, the treadboard fell apart! However, the legs were sound (and very deeply embedded) so a replacement was straightforward.
 |
| Upper treadboard in poor state. |
 |
| Safety test. Mmm! better than it was! |
Today's work was possible because of a donation from Little Box Consulting. Many thanks.
