Whilst the CROWS "A Team" were dispatched to the glamorous and high profile footbridge replacement at Rough Hey, Andrew and Jan worked on a stile repair on a popular footpath through the woods from Calderside to Glen View above Mytholm - well used as part of the school run, avoiding the main road.
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| Before the repair work began. |
Upon inspection, the post and rails of the structure were found to be reasonably solid but the treadboard was missing. Situated on a fairly steep and slippery slope and with the top rail high above the ground, path users had resorted to crossing the wall line by stepping over the adjacent barbed wire fence - ouch!
The remnants of the stile legs were found and removed, their position suggesting a problem in originally finding a place for them in the footings of the wall. The consequence of this was a large distance between the stile legs and an unusually long treadboard.
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| A visit from Paul, a grateful resident who reported the problem in the first place. |
To keep things simple, the remains of the old stile legs were removed and new ones installed in the original holes. The long treadboard was added which, upon stress testing, was seen to flex too much in the middle. To help minimise this, the top rail was removed and positioned underneath the treadboard for support. This worked fine but was not aesthetically pleasing. After much deliberation over lunch it was decided to raise the middle rail so that the rails were equidistant - it looked so much better and worth the effort!
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| Finished stile seen from below. |
Further along the path, a waymark post had fallen and needed to be dealt with. A cosy new home was found for the slightly shortened post.
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| Waymark post tucked away but highly visible. |
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| A lovely message of appreciation left on the car windscreen. |
Todays work was funded by an individual donation to CROWS - thank you!
