On what turned out to be one of the wettest days in the past couple of months, Andy, Jan and Jerry ventured up to a stile in Brock Holes wood above Great House Farm in Cragg Vale.
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| The blue pin marks the location of the stile on the footpath along the edge of the woods. |
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| Stile looks OK but not safe. |
The stile looked to be in reasonably good order but, in reality, it was in a pretty bad state. One of the treadboards was very wobbly and the top rail was attached to a rotten grab post and a loose stock fence on both sides. In effect, except for one treadboard, the whole contraption needed to be dismantled and rebuilt.
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| Dismantling took quite a while. |
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| Excavating the post holes was harder than it looked... |
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| But we got there in the end... |
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| Despite the rain... |
We will have to re-visit the stile to make the stock fence more secure and to fit another short rail or dog gate. There is another stile close by that is in need of repair so both jobs will be carried out at the same time.
Today's work has been funded through donations to CROWS. Many thanks to all who contributed.
