Late start at Stanton

Saturday 13 April 

Having only 2 in this morning limited our options, we had to cover the visit of an ecologist to look at the River Isbourne at 10:00 am, so we decided to pick off a small job first instead of wandering about annoying other volunteers. Thus we headed off south to the down side crest of Winchcombe cutting to retrieve some thick wire spotted a couple of weeks ago. Wire plays havoc with the vegetation clearance machinery hence we try collect it when it's spotted lineside. 

Roger assess the find 

The wire turned out to be the stump of a concrete fence post with all the reinforcing splayed out. It was safely returned to the scrap pile at Winchcombe.  

Then we headed along the crest to look at the chamber where the ditch from the field joins the crest drain. It needs raising and new lids, another task to go on the waiting list. 

Crest drain chamber, bridge rail lid 

Ditch across the field that drains into the crest 

inside the chamber, good flow from the field 

The ecologist's visit was to assess the site for some potential erosion control works on Culvert 21A, the River Isbourne, just to the east of Winchcombe Station. 

Looking at the plant life 

River Isbourne Culvert 21A east bank 

The river on the down side of the track has moved over so that standing on the east bank is now the original centre line. There is a danger now that flood water could wash behind the west wing wall and destabilise the embankment and carriage sidings.  

Just before lunch Andrew arrived from his morning course so it was off to Stanton to carry on along the down side crest. Roger backfilled chamber 1 while Andrew finished digging out the new land drain pipe.  

Backfilling round Chamber 1 

Chamber 2 - Digging round the extra pipe 

Home made lids on Chamber 1 

Not to be outdone by the Thursday gang, Andrew has to go and find yet another drain, this one is a perforated plastic pipe running under the 'Osma' land drain pipe, it has run in from the field and swings along the crest drain. 

Pipe 3 next to Chamber 2 

We assessed this as low risk, and probably the drain that was replaced by the pipe that ran above. So, a section was cut out to see if any water was running. Nothing has run trough it for a while as it was solid with clay. It will be abandoned when we backfill after re-routing the land drain. 

Section of perforated pipe surgically removed for analysis
Contents too solid for water 

Next move was to the south to excavate chamber 3 and prepare the ground at excavation 4. 

Chamber 3  

Excavation 4 site - stream joins the crest drain 

Chamber 3 brickwork was assessed as poor last week, Andrew found that he was able to lift the bricks out without resorting to a big hammer, the mortar has disintegrated 

Andrew lifts the chamber walls out 

.  

Roger digs in excavation 4 

By close of play, 4 courses of bricks had been removed and the footings for the walls at excavation 4 were ready for concreting next week. 

Chamber 3 (Photo: Andrew) 

Excavation 4 (Photo: Andrew) 

Back at Winchcombe we popped into Carriage & Wagon to see how the grille for Culvert 7A is progressing after we had seen James running across the yard armed with rebar this morning. One half is well on the way to completion now. 

Culvert 7A grille manufacture 

Back to Stanton on Monday all being well.