The Stanton Journal

Saturday 20 April 

With a clear blue sky and the temperature over 20 degrees it wasn't the day to be working, but like a lot of volunteers in other departments, we were keen to make progress 😇 

Only 2 jobs tackled, first off we lodged Roger in excavation 4 with a pile of bricks and his packed lunch and left him to it. 

Start Point - Excavation 4 

Alastair back in action on the mixer 

The bricks arrive 

Roger in his element (Photo: Alastair) 

The other job was to continue the search for the hidden gully drain under Bridge 11. A straight forward little task one would think, just stick the rods in the outlet an Bob's you uncle!.  

Root saw, sawing clay 😟

Small screw, more clay 

CCTV out again 

After clearing most of the clay at 2 metres in, progress stopped at another block 4m in, so the CCTV was called in again... 

The void at 4m calls for intervention therapy, so we dig in to see what the problem is. 

Stuart breaks the surface with the long spade
(Photo: Alastair) 

If all else fails, scoop the clay out by hand
(Photo: Alastair) 

Area of collapsed pipe 

Solid clay in the pipe
going towards the bridge 

We will be back to dig further along next week. 

When Roger eventually surfaced, he had almost run out of the 100 bricks we brought up this morning. 

Excavation 4, end of day 

Another plus point today, the puncture proof tyres on the new barrows work, as proved by a couple of blackthorn spikes 

Thorn in the side (or tyre)