The footpath known as Hebden Royd 036 leads down between two walls from Bloomer Gate on Midgley Road to Lower Ewood. It's a lovely old sunken track with remnants of ancient cobble stones and lots of big trees. On a scorching hot day, it provided welcome shade for today's work party - Paul and Frank S.
One team had previously cleared Himalayan balsam, fallen trees and other vegetation, and so today's task was to construct a short flight of steps up a steep rise near the top of the path. Steps like this are often quite straight forward to build, but this job turned out a bit different. The steps were close to a big, old sycamore tree with lots of roots across the path, and, under the leaf litter, a ground that was mostly stone and brick rubble. This made it hard to find anywhere to knock in the stobs that hold the risers in place . . . and knocking them in took more than the usual 'oomph'!
The five steps turned out well, but as the pictures show, they aren't quite as elegant as usual. You may notice that one step has only one visible stob. This is because the second stob is hidden behind the riser in the only place we could find to drive it in.
This path needs another four or five steps above the ones installed today, so we will be back in the next few weeks to finish the task.
This work was funded by individual donations to CROWS. Thank you for your support.
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| The steep rooty rise by the sycamore tree |
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| Work in progress |
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| The finished steps |
