Wooplaw

Last weekend we returned to Wooplaw Community Woodland, to repair some of the walls there. We've been here many times (see previous blog posts), but not for a while. I was pleased to see that the dry stone bridge was still standing.

The low side walls of the bridge are actually built on flattened logs, and it was these that I was worried would have rotted over the decade or so that they've been there. However, they were in pretty good shape, presumably because even though they'll get wet, they're high enough above the usual water level to dry out again each time. There was no water at all in the ditch on this occasion.

However, the arch we'd made a bit further down, where the ditch crosses a wall, had collapsed. Regular readers of this blog (if there are any) will know that I frequently forget to take a 'before' photo. And this occasion was no exception. So here's the gap where the collapsed arch had been, after all the stone had been cleared away.

It was decided that it would be easier just to bridge the gap with a lintel rather than attempting to rebuild the arch, so we set about finding suitable long stones for the job. There were only a few stones a couple of feet long in the stone pile near the wall, which didn't seem long enough to me, and as I knew there was a big stone pile in the next field a few of us set off to see if there was anything better there. And so it turned out there was - a big lump of stone about three feet long.

It took four of us some effort - and time - to carry it back, and when we arrived we found that the others had just made do with the stones they had.

Having seen what it gets like when there's been a lot of rain, the resulting gap seems a bit small to me, but we'll see how it does. There's a lot of stone above it, so hopefully it'll stay up even if the water backs up a bit.

The big stone didn't got to waste: there was another repair required a few yards further down the wall, and it was incorporated into that.

Another feature we'd previously built at Wooplaw was a three-pronged seat, designed with the idea of providing shelter from the wind no matter which direction it was coming from. In actual fact, the seat backs aren't really high enough to provide much shelter, but it makes for an original design at least. It was still standing, but some of it had obviously come down and been put up again by hands perhaps more enthusiastic than experienced.

We tidied it up a bit, but it really needs some proper attention on a future visit.

The forecast had been for heavy showers, but for the morning it stayed dry. At lunchtime the rain started, so we repaired to the cabin for lunch. And miraculously after lunch the rain stopped again, so we sallied forth to effect some repairs to the walls near the cabin.

Mid afternoon the rain started again and very quickly became heavy, so we abandoned work at about 3 pm.

We'll be back next month, so further updates then. Thanks to everyone who came along, and to Karen and Stephen from Wooplaw for organising the visit.