Friday 9 December 2011

What's not to smile about?


Wednesday 7th December was a perfect day for not walling so Richard, Paul and I decided to have a picnic instead!

Eighteen out of ten to Emma II (photo credit) and Graham B as well as the aforementioned Paul and Richard for even turning up this week.  Only eleven out of ten to Boogie who hid in his mistress' fleece and looked miz.  The weather promised to be foul - a promise kept in spades as an icy wind drove sleet and rain right along the wall so that neither side offered any real shelter.

We soldiered on through the first onslaught, warmed ourselves with rapidly diluting coffee, and quit at lunchtime as conditions were just too unpleasant.  One short course doesn't move us on very far, but it was hard-fought and got us back on line after last week's minor aberration.

Very nice to see Ian Curtis, who came along to wish us all a very Merry Christmas (he's way next week).  No wussy ways for him - he still turned up clad in immaculate tweeds, scarf and flat 'at even though the rest of us were huddling.  Brrrrr!

Thursday 1 December 2011

Markenfield Hall - 30th November

So ends another fine and sunny Wednesday's walling.  Once again we enjoyed a good turn out and got lots done, so thanks as usual to all those who turned out.

Em (II), Catriona, Graham D, Graham B, Anita, Roger and Phillip.

We set about our tasks, special mentions must go to Graham B and Phillip who filled the hole in the ground with something that looks suspiciously like a wall and also to Graham D who slogged tirelessly getting the copes onto the completed sections of wall.

All in all a very productive day although next week might need some reworking as someone who'll remain nameless (probably me - definitely me!) beautifully horizontally coursed her sections of wall only to look back at the end of the day and discover she'd not noticed the previous contouring done on the other sections.  Ho hum, I enjoyed myself anyway!

See you next week

Em

(photos to follow)





Tuesday 29 November 2011

Markenfield Hall - 23rd November

Well after another prolonged hiatus from walling I finally made it back this week.  We had another splendid turnout this week, probably had a lot to do with the equally splendid weather we have been enjoying.

Many thanks to Chris, Em (II), Richard, Graham, Phillip, Roger, Nick, Walter and Paul.  A very warm welcome to Anita and Pete who joined us for the first time this week. 

We split into decidedly masculine and feminine teams this week with the girly team tackling the curve round the tree and the men heading further up the wall to work on the sections already under way and unearthing the foundations from the rubble piles.

Good progress was made with the curved wall around the tree topped and the other sections being honed to perfection.

Apologies for the lack of pictures this week, hopefully the rain will be kept at bay for another week so we can get some evidence of all the sterling work that the team have been doing so far.

See you next week.

Em

Wednesday 9 November 2011

One step forward ...

... and, well, one step back. 

Another great turnout this week despite the Ems not being on top form (good wishes to both for a speedy return to good health).  'Cos David likes to know, I'm delighted to acknowledge sterling work from Catriona, Morag, the Richards, a Graham, Barry, Roger, Paul, Phillip, Nick, Walter, all of whom will freely admit, if sufficiently bribed, cajoled and threatened, that I too was present.  Em I brought goodies at lunchtime for which many thanks.

And the one step back?  Richard, Paul, Morag and I got fed up of walking past the tumbledown mess left round the ash tree by our predecessors and took it all down  for rebuilding.  The rest of the gang made further good progress up the hill. 

D'you know, I think we're beginning to get the hang of this wall and its idiosyncratic slip-ups and slide-downs.  By Christmas we may know what we're doing!

Roll on next week!  Thanks everybody.

Chris

Wednesday 2 November 2011

Markenfield Photos

Here is the evidence of today's progress at lunchtime with Richard the Biker keen to get going:



and at close of play:




The next stage:


A section of the original wall further along the path:


Updated by Tony 

Markenfield Walling Festival

Well, it felt like it anyway!  The world and her dog made their merry way to Markenfield and we numbered 16 (one-six) souls including Boogie, (who has loads of soul) and ... let me think now ... me, of course, a couple of Grahams, a brace of Richards (one on a  bike which I think is a first), Em II (Em I being slightly crook and bruised this week - get well soon), Tony, Morag (welcome!), Nick, Walter (also welcome!), Phillip, Paul, Barry, Roger and Catriona.

A fantastic turn out and a lot of ground covered.  Stints one and two completed up to rather heavily improvised copes; loads more stripped out; and a new stretch up to three courses on the downhill side.

Sincere thanks to everyone - I hope you enjoyed the day.  Tony and Barry will hopefully fill in the photographic void with which I now leave you.

Wednesday 26 October 2011

Week Two at Markenfield Hall

Blogging out of sequence and without any pictorial evidence!  What will he think of next?

A second fine and well-attended day at Markenfield - Paul, Roger, Richard, Graham B, Barry G, Nick, Em II (and Boogie) and ... surprise, surprise ... Catriona.  Not sure what the doctors would say but she managed a full day without wilting and seems well on the way to a full recovery.  Welcome back, m'dear!

Said Catriona, Paul and I stripped out another stint (the one that gave way last week under Richard's mighty lean) and rebuilt it to path-side foundation level (4/5 courses on the ditch side).

Meanwhile, the rset of the crew pressed on with the first stretch and, despite challenging stone, completed it to within one course of what we laughingly refer to as copes (whatever big weighty stuff we can find lying around).  Copes here are about as common as throughs and we haven't identified a single one of those so far.

More next week (with photos).

Chris

Thursday 20 October 2011

Markenfield Hall - 19th October

This week saw the group kick off a new project at Markenfield Hall, this is an exciting time for us as we begin the restoration of a park pale. The pale at Markenfield is also a scheduled ancient monument so this a project that requires not only a high level of technical ability but also care and attention to the heritage value of the walls structure and location.
We started by assessing the wall and trying to determine its original path and dimensions.

The pale has a ditch on the inside face which originally would mean the height that side was enough to keep the deer in the park.

Investigations in the rubble indicated that the foundations were not as broad as feared and we determined they should be 3' wide by ground level. We cleared away all the stones and replaced some of the foundations where they were missing. Once we had established a level to work from we built the wall up to ground level (on the outside wall).




The pale has a challenging mix of stone, some sandstone which we have deduced is part of the original wall and field cobbles which seem to have been used to patch up the wall over time. We felt the outside face of the wall is the most visible side of the wall (especially when the vegetation regrows on the inside face) so elected to use as much original stone here as possible.


We made good progress with a good turnout in lovely weather (long may it last) and by 3pm had reached ground level.





Thanks to Richard, Chris, Phillip, Roger, Graham B, Graham D, Barry and Nick for your hard work this week.

Em



Friday 14 October 2011

Final week at Banks Farm - 12th October

What a day! We had another good turnout this week, two long lost wallers returned to the fold and Nick came back to join us again so we must have been on our best behaviour last week if he wasn't put off.

We had hoped to get the wall completed this week as we are starting a new project next week, the good news is that we did, the bad news is we might have to adjust some of the copes when we next return. Still for now it is stable and protected from the elements and with a bit of luck it'll be cow proof as well.

We spent the day in constant drizzle so we haven't got the best photos to show but they'll have to do.

Next week onto green fields and pastures new, huge thanks to Graham B, Robert, Barry G, Em 2, Phillip and Nick for a sterling effort.

Em

Ps got my new (2nd hand) iPhone today so photos will follow shortly.

Thursday 6 October 2011

Walling at Banks Farm - 5th October

Well so ends another weeks walling at Banks Farm, the weather held off til the last minute and despite the interest from the cows currently residing in the fields we got a good days work in.

Cows!
We were joined by faces old and new this week, welcome back to Barry G and hello to Nick who has slogged over from the west to help us along our way.

We split into pairs and carried on building up the wall at the far end and took down the rest of the stint to foundation level. We set Nick (as an experienced waller) the task of working on the cheekend and the rest of us tried to find some room and work on raising up a substantial height of wall before the end of the day.




Clearing foundations

Foundations going in



The session was fraught with strong winds, bovine interest, cow pat encrusted canines (thanks Boogie) and injury. (I managed to bash two fingers and get grit in my eye, which after a trip to the minor injuries unit at Ripon turned out to be a minor laceration - ouch).





Well that'll be all from me for now, my medicinal red wine is starting to take effect and my typing is wandering, I'm also a little freaked out by the florescent eye dye coming out of my nose!

Thanks to Chris, Em2, Richard (the younger), Graham D, Nick, Barry G, Martin and Phillip for all your hard work today.

Em

Tuesday 4 October 2011

Walling at Banks Farm 28th September

Another week in West End and we were treated to beautiful clear skies and scorching sunshine.  A slow start for me today and I kicked off with a coffee to get the parts of me into gear that needed to be in gear!
Refreshing the parts that other drinks can't reach

Once the coffee had worked it's magic we set about building the gap up that we started a couple of weeks ago.  The stone is still proving a challenge but we battled on and managed to get a good few courses on before we lost a couple of folks at lunch time.  We even broke out the lines to try and get a nice horizontal course in place.

Next week we'll be returning to West End, hopefuly we'll see more of the lovely weather.

Thanks to Roger, Paul and Phillip for a hard days slog under the sun.

Em





Thursday 22 September 2011

Walling 21st September - West End


We were welcomed at West End by a beautiful clear day and a bracing breeze to compliment!  We had a quiet week this week with just four of us able to make it and two of us only able to manage half a day (lightweights!).  That make Em, Em, Phillip and Graham the tally of mu... volunteers this week.

With so few of us we decided to press on with the section we started last week, by lunch time we had dismantled another stint of the wall and got up to the first level throughs.

By lunch time we had dwindled down to two, leaving only the brave to battle on.  I'm afraid I was one of the part timers today so cannot fill in the blanks about what happened after I left, perhaps Phillip or Graham will be able to leave some comments for us and let us know!

See you next week, Em




Tuesday 20 September 2011

The finished wall at the show

Each competitor had to take down and rebuild a 2 ½ yard stretch of wall. The base course was 2 ft 9 ins and the height 5 ft. It also had to tie up with neighbours wall on both sides.

The final courses


 The copes go on at 4.45 pm


Any volunteers for entering next years competition ?


Updated by Tony

Monday 19 September 2011

4th time's a charm!

It's show time in Pateley Bridge again!

And... for the first time in 4 years I didn't need to cower from the elements with two children nagging to get ice creams and I finally managed to check out the dry stone walling competition. I have tried in vain to get round to it each year and every time something has come up and I've missed it.

The weather was lovely this year (I even managed to unzip my jumper in the heat!) and whilst the clouds threatened the rain held off until the end of the day.

Seven people entered the competition this year and you can see their progress in the pictures below. Naturally many members of the group stopped by to cast a critical eye over the proceedings and chat.  The quality of the work was very (very) good, I arrived in time to see the first throughs going in and called back a couple of times to check on the progress.  Unfortunately the day had worn on too long for my family and as the rain set in I checked in one last time to see if the wall was completed but it was just a little soon to see the copes going on.  Oh well, maybe next year!

It was a good day for celebrity spotting (I saw Kirsty Allsop twice - wayhey!) and if you have a magnifying glass you might spot Philip Dolphin at the walling judges tent watching proceedings (Philip ran the course at Craven College that Chris and I took last year).

See you on Wednesday

Em

ps. the St Cuthberts School Band were awesome as always - well done son!









Paul taking time out to check out the standard!


Blink and you'll miss him (spot the celebrity)



Little Jack - budding waller in the making
Two Jacks!  Is it going up though or coming down...