October

October News

ROSEMOOR RESTORATION - Report by Tony Nicholls - 28th October 2020

The sun shone brightly on us this week. Unfortunately, this was only for the last fifteen minutes of the session! The rest of the morning we laboured under intermittent heavy showers and squalls of wind, the net result being that the site became very soggy in places. At one point, things became so bad that our masons had to down tools as the rain was diluting the mortar. However, both teams made further progress during the day. It was also good to see the canal basin replenished after the recent rain, the water level being just a couple of inches below the lip of the lower sluice

We managed to raise the buttress for the lime kiln arch another two feet or so before rain stopped play. With further stone-laying out of the question, our masons started to remove some of the ivy from the left hand side of the archway. This revealed further damage to the masonry which will need repair. All this will require a huge amount of material. Currently, our riverside 'quarry' is still producing good quantities of dressed stone but how much more remains is open to question.

Building the buttress

Left hand wall of arch

Another mix under way

On the tucking mill site, we continued our assault on the huge tree stump (or The Obstacle as we now affectionately call it!). We were thrown into a state of despondency when we discovered yet another big tap root under the bole which will severely hamper our progress. We did have one major success, however, when we succeeded in removing another radial root so The Obstacle is slowly but surely being diminished. The photo shows that the stump sits directly in the line of what may be another flight of internal steps leading to what we think is another room so we really do need to get rid of it to open up this section of the building.

The Obstacle

Levering off the root

The Obstacle reduced

Possible internal steps

Working arrangements may vary in the immediate future as a result of the coronavirus epidemic. Anyone wishing to volunteer should contact Project Manager, Ian Harrison (tel.01237- 475707) or Treasurer, Tony Barnes (tel. 01237-473801) for up-to-date information.

SEA LOCK WORKING PARTY - Report by Michael Elliott - 20th October 2020

This Tuesday we arrived at Sea Lock in glorious sunshine, with the river almost overtopping the flood barrier on the Weare Gifford side of the river Torridge.

The canal is certainly a marvellous sight in the sunshine when it is full of water. In view of the water level, work shifted to the erection of scaffolding around the museum building. The timber has cracked over the dry spring and summer and needs a good coat of bitumen. The building is also looking a little lopsided, which seems to be due to modest subsidence of one of the pillars (near right in the picture).

ROSEMOOR RESTORATION - Report by Tony Nicholls - 21st October 2020

Volunteers continued to make steady progress on the lime kiln and the tucking mill this week.

Building up the lime kiln buttress

The buttress against the western arch has been raised by another two feet. We intend to take this up another 2 – 3 feet and then step back towards the wall before starting repairs to the arch itself. Because of the thickness of the buttress, we are packing the centre with rough infill which means that we are using up huge quantities of stone. Fortunately, our 'quarry' is still yielding more material.

On the tucking mill, we are still working on the Herculean task of removing the giant tree stump. Our worst fears were realised when we discovered a substantial tap root directly below the bole which is going to further impede our efforts. However, we have managed to cut through most of the radial roots and dug out a lot of the earth from under the stump so we are not yet admitting defeat! We are also doing a little exploratory digging around the interesting inlet in the canal wall (which we think may have been a sort of sluice – see report w/c 5.8.2019) to see how this may have linked with the new room we have found.

Excavations around the sluice

ROSEMOOR RESTORATION - Report by Michael Elliott - 14th October 2020

Wednesday was cold but bright, with plenty of water in the canal.

In the absence of chain-saw man, work on the tucking mill ignored the tree stump and focussed on exposing a wall and the flooring in an area stretching towards the canal. The tow path was also strimmed up to the deer-proof fence. Rosemoor will fit a door here when they can, to allow easier access to the rest of the tow path towards the weir. In the meantime, reaching the location of the leak in the canal requires some gymnastics. The fence here next to the towpath shows signs of recent overtopping by the canal. This might suggest a collapse under the towpath, but the leak emerges about one and a half metres from where it is draining on the canal side, so perhaps the towpath has been undermined by the leak itself.

Finally, repointing by the scaffolding was completed, and work continued building up the wing wall to stabilise the large arch of the kiln.

STOPS AND STARTS

Report and Photographs from Sea Lock by Adrian Wills - 15th October 2020

Work at Sea Lock has been somewhat spasmodic this week. I cancelled working with Trevor and Michael on Tuesday because the rain was absolutely hammering down around 9.00am. The rest of the morning was very unsettled but typically later in the day the weather improved and I managed, with the help of Paul Lewis and his father-in-law, to crane another coping stone into place. On Wednesday, working on my own, I bedded the coping stone down and craned the smaller one in place. By the end of the day, I had bedded that one down as well and built up a small length of the back of the wall across the reinstated drain from which copious amounts of water is flowing so some progress was made.

Today, I woke up with a very painful and swollen wrist (All say, ‘Ah!’) which I think was as a result of trying to split some very knotty wood for our wood-stove, after returning home from the canal yesterday. Since I am right-handed and have lost, temporarily I hope, full use of that hand, I have had to cancel working with Trevor again.

This is a great shame because it is very bright and dry this morning although there has been a quite hard frost overnight and was very misty when I went for my usual first-thing walk down to the canal and back.

However I was able to take some photographs of my favourite tree which stands tall in the riverside meadow directly opposite the Sea Lock site. I have taken many pictures of this tree over the years, across all the seasons and during different weather conditions. This morning, ‘The season of mists and mellow fruitfulness’ comes very much to mind!

Trees in the snow – February 4th 2012

ROSEMOOR RESTORATION - Report by Tony Nicholls - 7th October 2020

Ideal working conditions today – cool, dry and fine – a pleasant contrast to last week. It was good to see the basin in a reasonable depth of water after the recent heavy rain and looking more like a canal. We are continuing to work on two fronts: the lime kiln and the tucking mill.

As noted in last week's report, we have gone about as far as we can with repairs to the upper section of the western lime kiln wall so the focus now is on re-pointing the lower stonework, a task which has almost been completed. The re-build of the wall beneath the archway is progressing well which will provide a solid foundation on which to carry out the restoration of the arch itself – as far as we safely can.

On the tucking mill site, we continued our assault on the massive tree stump. We are adopting the approach used by the BBC in its Bitesize exam material i.e. nibbling away at one root at a time! Many of the roots are themselves the diameter of a small tree so this is proving to be laborious work. However, this week we managed to successfully remove a major root enabling us to expose more of the new room we have found. This area is now better defined and looks as if it may have contained another flight of steps leading down to a lower level. Unfortunately, the stump sits right above the area we want to excavate so a lot more 'nibbling' will be required before we can make further progress here.