South East Scotland DSWA

Margaret has very kindly send me some more photos of our Wooplaw outing. Here's the arch, such as it was, before work started.

Richard brought a form which he'd made for a previous job. However, he didn't have the interior supports, so he filled it with stones before building the arch over it.

He stated he'd be amazed if it stayed up first time, however (quite a big video clip, so may take some time to run):

(I had to download the quicktime plug-in to get this to work on my browser, which is Google Chrome).

Of course, once it had stayed up, we were all happy to share the credit.

In March the branch held the first of this year's training weekends for new dykers. Bruce Curtis took the class with Margaret Forrest going along to lend a hand - thanks to her for the following report and photos.

The March training weekend was run by Bruce and attended by an enthusiastic group of beginners. We dismantled a 10 metre section of a wall on Easter Kinleith Farm in the Pentlands and spent the weekend rebuilding it into a more compact and stronger dyke. 

The beginners worked hard and seemed to enjoy the challenge of learning a new skill. A stream running down one side of the wall proved to be an additional challenge, but Bruce came prepared with boards to enable working on both sides of the wall. 

We were very lucky with the weather and were blessed with blue skies and sunshine for most of the weekend. 

I attended as an extra pair of hands (not sure how helpful they were) and found the training weekend a very useful refresher. Many thanks to the Bruce for a great course!

Margaret

And now, a word from our chairman (with photo by Tim):

The summer programme at Vogrie Country Park, just north of Pathhead, got off to a good start on Saturday (12 May) with a bright, sunny day and five eager dykers, including new member, Tim Wheater. He’s a Yorkshireman but we forgave him as he is now based in East Lothian and is a friend of Andrew Muir, who was also present. John Duff, Gillian Burnett and myself completed the group and we tackled repairs to an old ha ha running alongside a woodland, which had become overgrown with rhododendrons and had partially silted up.

We dug out one overhanging section but the rebuild unfortunately could not be completed because of an old tree stump which had not yet been removed. The rangers hope to do that soon and use their Community Project team to fill in the gap before an inspection at the end of the month for a Green Flag award.

We had time to move along to another two sections which were in poor condition, avoiding tree roots but causing consternation to a small (coal?) tit nesting in a gap under where we were sitting for lunch – not to mention a sleepy bumblebee. We quickly moved on to our final section of the day, where further home wrecking ensued when one of us (she shall be nameless) uncovered a grassy mouse nest, complete with several mouselings. A dry cave was restored around the nest and we hope all parties have recovered from the shock.

The restored wall looks good and will no doubt bed in within a year or two. Many thanks to all concerned.

Richard

Two Sundays ago (and my apologies for the delay in posting this) saw the SES DSWA returning to Wooplaw Community Woodland (www.wooplaw.org.uk), this time to work on a couple of cheek ends and an arch over a drainage stream, with the aim of persuading walkers to use the drier side of the wall which runs between the older woodland and the more recently forrested area which used to be a field. At present walkers tend to head through the gap near the barbecue area, which is fine if they're heading up hill where there's a well-made path (with a fine dry stone wall, repaired by SES DSWA a couple of years ago). However, if they head down hill towards the ponds, they soon find themselves bemired in very boggy ground - and if they'd only stayed on the other side of the wall until they got to the bottom of the hill they'd be on much nicer dry ground, well drained by a ditch running along that side of the wall. They haven't seemed keen on doing this, however, perhaps as it would've meant they'd have to cross said ditch and then climb over the wall. So, taking advantage of an existing collapse near the bottom of the hilll the path is being re-routed, with our job being to bridge the ditch and put a proper gap put in the wall.

I got there a bit late, so work had already begun on clearing down the remains of the collapsed wall.

We had a decent quantity of long stone to put into the cheek ends, and our only problem really was that the drainage ditch was very close to the 'dry' side of the wall (the far side in these photos), which meant that just about all the stone had to be stored on the near side of the wall. However, we persevered with few brave souls braving the risk of becoming beditched if they strayed too far from the wall.

The rain stayed off, though it did get very muddy, especially in the new gap. We put some stone down to pave it somewhat, and that along with the improved drainage will (hopefully) sort it out. Here's the bottom cheek end in it's finished form.

And the top one, nearing completion.

(At this point, the battery in my phone died - I'll post more photos when I get them). We also bridged the ditch along the back of the wall by putting in a section of pipe and 'pitching' over it, and Richard built a stone arch over the point where the drain runs under the wall further down. I'm hoping I'll be able to post a video of the supports being removed and the arch staying up ... gripping stuff, watch this space ...

Our first planned practical day of the year at the British Geological Survey fell foul of health and safety concerns (they weren't keen on our dry stone path, it seems) and got cancelled. So Sunday's meet at Torduff reservoir was the first of this year.

The wall in question is at the top of the loch - there is a road by it, and in days gone by this was open to the public. This seems to have resulted in stones being 'borrowed' from the wall ... bit of a big souvenir, but probably looks good in the rockery ...

The road now has a locked gate at the bottom, so we're hopeful that the stones will now stay where we've put them. However, we mortared the cope in as well, just to be sure.

Here's how it looked when we arrived (or at least, when I arrived, with family in tow - Alan and Dave were there already, and had started some of the preparatory work).

Andrew and Gillian arrived at about the same time and, after rescuing and rehousing some wildlife, we'd got it back up to through level by mid-morning coffee break.

After break we ploughed on, pausing only (in my case) to fall off the wall. It's a bigger step down than it looks ... maybe I shouldn't've tried it with my coffee in one hand and the camera in the other. Anyway, no serious harm done to anything other than my lost coffee and my pride. By lunch we were up to cope level.

Gillian had to leave after lunch, so she missed the sun which came out as we were finishing off.

Here's the final piece ... you can just make out the mortar, but it will moss over with time.