Great House Farm - the style of stiles
Jan and Frank H worked near the impressive building that is Great House Farm to replace the stile on footpath, Heptonstall 028, that goes from Edge Lane to Smithy Lane.
The task was to replace a wobbly, single-step stile with a new two-step structure.
The work was funded by the landowner who also provided some of the timber. Many thanks.
The details
1. Start of session.
The old stile presents some problems for the walker. This single-step structure has:
i) partly rotten treadboard and legs.
ii) a left side-post that has rotted through at ground level
iii) side posts (one doubling as a fence post and the other as a gate post) which are not in the same plane!
iv) cross-rails that are weakly attached or misaligned.
2. Work in progress.
In the ideal conditions of a sunny, windless day Jan and Frank battered the rocky ground into submission to install two new stile side-posts. The left hand post has the old fence rails fixed to it and is in the same plane as the new right-hand post. Two standard steps will be constructed in the gap and cross-rails fitted to run from left-hand post to right-hand post, then on to meet the out-of-plane gate post . . .
3. End of session.
. . . and here it is
If Jan looks to be slumping a little wearily, it's not surprising - this was a long hard shift! Fortunately, in the afternoon, we were joined by Billie. Not quite the cavalry, but a very useful extra pair of hands.
As the picture shows, a dog-gate has been added just to the right of the left side-post and the four cross-rails have narrow enough gaps to deter lambs. What is not visible are the 'overlaps' that tie the stile step legs together (This massively improves structural integrity) and the shaping of the right-hand end of each cross-rail so it meets, and can be screwed into, a face of the gate-post (This improved the stability of the gate-post which may need replacing in a year or two). In addition, the treadboards have been secured such that the 'platform' on the stock side is not quite as long as the 'platform' on the private track side (This usually foils the scrambling-over efforts of even the most athletic of lambs!).
Overall we were very pleased with the outcome. Plan A worked (hooray!) and the stile meets CROWS' generic criteria of being safe, secure, functional, durable and aesthetically pleasing.
More near here next week but it will be work on a gate rather than a stile.
