Still at Stanton

Thursday 1 August

Back at Culvert 11A, it wasn't just bricks and concreting today, in an attempt to keep ahead of the bricklayers there was a bit more excavation. Plus a visit to Stanley Pontlarge to see what the heavy rain on Tuesday had done and then some finishing off jobs.

Michael spent the day laying the top headers on up side north wall, he had set himself a challenge to get over the 100 mark (a new PB (in athletic terms, nothing to do with lead 😊)). Like all good suspense novels we'll leave the result until the end. Alastair had another hard day on the mixer with mortar and concrete mixes. Stuart and Andrew concreted the footings for the south wall on the down side after a detour to Culvert 28A, the Andrew dug more footings for the headwall on the down side cess extension pipe.

Up side north wall - Michael gets the first 6 bricks down
(Photo: Alastair)

At the end of the yellow stick by 11 am.
Still a long way to go

The record was looking doubtful by lunchtime

The bottom end of the footings on the down side were concreted on Thursday, just the top end to do today.

It doesn't look much but it will take several mixes

Down side south wall extension footings

While the mixer was going, another couple of mixes were dropped in to backfill the south wall that was raised.

Concrete backfill done

Andrew delivers more mortar for Michael

Down side from the bridge

Alastair unloaded the ballast we brought up from Winchcombe ready for the next slab of concrete.

Alastair not feeding the mixer

The ditch on Culvert 11B eventually got cleared, the end chamber for the 11B-11A carrier drain will go in here next to the tree stump.

Culvert 11B up side ditch

Andrew got stuck into excavating the footings for the new headwall on the downside cess extension.

Andrew down in the hedge line

The ground water that isn't making excavation easy
(Photo: Alastair)

Andrew trying to keep in the dry
(Photo: Alastair)

Down side cess Extension footings excavated

Some of the left over small gabion stone was used to backfill the gap between the down side north wall and the wing wall, this should allow the seepage to run out.

Stuart tipping gabion stone in
(Photo: Alastair)

Artistically positioning the gabion stone 😟
(Photo: Alastair)

The filled void

By late afternoon Michael had got onto doing the pointing up.

Record attempt in progress - Do not disturb

By the end of the day the progress was visible, just. The down side shuttering will come out on Saturday for the other side to be concreted.

Down side from above

Down side - the deep ditch on the cess has gone

Now for the big reveal: how did Michael manage with the headers? 125 bricks were laid out ready, only 15 remain to go in. 110 in one day is officially a new PB. Next challenge is to attempt to beat the world record of 872 bricks in 1 hour 😀

Up side north wall, just a small gap at the far end to complete

Culvert 28A survived the downpour remarkably well, with just a shallow covering of sandy silt on the chamber lid. There is clear evidence of water flowing from upstream of the chamber though. A dig is on the cards to investigate.