Just a quick post tonight with an update on progress on my new bridge at Bradfield. On Thursday I worked for the first time with a new waller, Michael Howard. We dug out and laid concrete foundations for the first abutment and prepared the site for starting walling on Friday. The water level thankfully was as low as I have…
The current big project is building a green oak bridge. This is the site where two previous bridges have washed away due to the force of the flood water we get round here. Last week with rain falling on snow on the hills the water rose over 3 feet overnight and turned a trickling brook into a fairly decent sized…
I am just going to add a few notes that I have found about the Langdale bridges and hope that anyone with more information will get in touch. 1673 7 October. John Holme to Daniel Fleming reporting that the bridge at Elterwater needs repairs to the amount of £45. I didn’t post pictures of the main Elterwater Bridge but here…
I don’t normally put holiday snaps on my blog but I know I have quite a few overseas readers who enjoy seeing the scenery. I also want to share my current enthusiasm for pack horse bridges which shows some of the layers of mans footprint on the land. Last week our children were at an outdoor activity centre for the…
Today we had the official opening of my new bridge at the North Lees estate near Hathersage, Narendra Bajaria chair of the Peak National Park snipped the ribbon then we all ate local ice cream provided by the Chair of the Local parish council who makes gorgeous Hope Valley Ice cream using heather honey from the North Lees estate. The…
Its been a hectic few weeks with courses at weekends and lots of work during the week and not much time for posting photos. Anyway this is the bridge I started back in May and now finally finished. I seem to have mislaid the other photos I took on the last day but will post some more next time I…
I started using traditional copper boat nails in my woodwork a couple of years ago, they make an incredibly strong fixing, look great and age beautifully. Since then the price of copper has gone up enormously resulting in the nails doubling in price. I use quite a lot of them when building a bridge and on benches so spent some…
I just heard that the last bridge I built at Golden Clough, Edale has won a Campaign for Rural England design award. This is the 25th year of the awards which aim to “celebrate particularly fine examples of projects which make a positive contribution to the rural scene.” It is the second time I have won one of the awards…
Its been a busy few weeks trying to fit work in with spending time with the children during school holidays and not much time for the computer. I have been doing some more work on the bridge I started way back in May. The new bridge is in an inacesible location and we are building it entirely from oak felled…
I had another day working on my new oak bridge this week. It is across Hood Brook on the North Lees estate above Hathersage (Little John was supposed to come from there). It’s a gorgeous spot and we are having great fun walking in with out tools and working on the trees in situ to create the new bridge. Here…
