More progress at Stanton

Thursday 18 April  

The weather is being kind and we are making good progress along the down side crest at Stanton. Michael was first to get started with the build of Chamber 2. Then Roger set up on excavation 4 to build what will be an open sided inlet to take the stream into the crest drain and away to the cess drains.  

Dave and Roger pumping out excavation 4 (Photo: Andrew) 

A bit more gabion stone was dropped into the cess below the spring in the cutting slope to the south of the work site. 

Cess soak away now completed 

The bricks removed from chamber 3 have been cleaned up and will be reused to rebuild the chamber. 

Dave and Andrew sorting the bricks for reuse (Photo: Alastair) 

We had a resupply drop this morning with more sand and cement, a couple of pallets of bricks should arrive on Tuesday. This will save us carting stores up from Winchcombe. 

More sand and cement delivered 

By late morning the thirst for adventure had overtaken the team, so it was over to the up side cess to finally nail the location of the missing chamber. The video taken on Monday had provided an approximate location. The dig commenced... 

Andrew and Dave start to dig (Photo: Alastair) 

The blue line should be the centre of the chamber
(should being the operative word 😕) 

Andrew and Alastair with the rods   

Second opinion, slightly north of first position 

The short trench only uncovered drain blocks so a second opinion was sought. The cess was rodded again from the south to identify the north end of the chamber. This showed we had been digging about 70mm short. This chamber is to the north of it's opposite number on the down side. breaking the model for the rest of the run. 

Found chamber, covered with steel sheet 

Stuart clears the steel sheet to check the integrity of the cover
(Photo: Alastair)  

Sheet in place and capable of bearing traffic 

After checking the steel was in place on the chamber, the ballast was replaced and the excavation backfilled. 

While all the furious digging had been taking place Michael and Roger had been busy building. Excavation 4 now has the bottom 2 courses of brick in place and Chamber 2 is nearing ground level while Dave backfilled the hole where the second pipe was re-routed. 

Base layers in Excavation 4 

Michael still building while Dave landscapes the south end 

Last job was to remove the 'headstone' from the end of the land drain. 

Concrete head marker slab removed