Restoration Blog

Ham Mill April 8^th to 11^th 2019

by: Andy P.

An early morning planning meeting sounded straight forward.  Build the block walls (Duncan), fill with concrete (Mathew), face with red bricks (Bob and Duncan), pointing (Andy), top with coping stones (everyone).

Mathew kept us supplied both days, with mortar and concrete whilst trying to match conflicting demands for wet (bricks) or drier mixes (blocks).  The first blocks had to be individually cut to match the slope and fit the rebar, but once laid, things speeded up.

Jason and the stone lifter were used to bring a steady supply of coping stones, which were cut and shaped to size.  Kay kept up a steady supply of bricks for the wall.

Lockkeeper Bob wanted to fill part of the lock and overflow into the spill weir for the inaugural ceremonial bypass run.  No ribbon cutting as too wet but lots of happy faces as all the underground works carried the water away. Nice.

Leonie brought cake. We like Leonie. We like Leonie a lot.

Our leader Bob went to fetch bricks and biscuits. We also like Bob a lot.

Dave C brought diesel. We also like Dave.

Jason somehow extracted and moved the large cement mixer into the ‘yard’ to give us space for future tow path realignment.

Joe our resident BD repairer fitted a fuel non return valve and returned on Tuesday with another starter motor.  This enabled Jason to remove the bog mats and create a space for our new visitor, the landing stage barge.

Wednesday work continued with brick work, then fitting individual selected, sized and cut, coping stones, to the longer wall.  We even found some sweeping up time as well as slope reduction and a bit of back filling.  More happy faces.

Bob said his goodbyes as he takes a well deserved big birthday holiday.  Happy birthday Bob from all the ham millers.

We promise we will not be finished by the time you return as we will probably still be waiting for confirmation of what to do with the collapsed wall.  It’s frustrating.  It’s frustrating a lot.