Kell Bank School: 5-02-13

(Editor’s note: In addition to the conservation work carried out this week, on Monday afternoon the NCVs were also invited to attend another training session with the community archaeologist, Kevin Cale.  Six NCVs (and many other members of the public) attended the session. As is always the case with Kev, it was a really interesting and informative afternoon and a good way to follow up his previous training session on historic maps (see blog entry for 11.12.12). This time he was explaining about how both oblique and vertical aerial photographs can be used to spot different archaeological features in the landscape. The last part of the afternoon was spent looking at table size photos of the Ripon area and putting our new found skills into practice. Thanks go to Sally Childes for organising this event.)

Due to snow falling during Monday night only two intrepid NCVs were able to turn out this week. We were returning to Kell Bank school, Healey (near Masham). This was a place where we spent a number of Tuesdays, about four years ago, making an allotment garden for the children.  Although it is not the time of year to see school gardens looking at their best, it was good to see that the allotment area was well maintained and now included a number of nice touches such as various signs on the raised beds, shed doors and compost area.

There were five different tasks to complete today - no mean feat for two NCVs, their minder and a member of the school's PTA. Whilst Tony and Paul set to work installing a water butt and pipe system to feed the school's new bog garden, I began putting wooden edging alongside the pathway in the allotment area. This retaining wall was needed to stop the soil spilling over and making the pathway muddy for the children to walk on. Once Gaynor joined us a little later on she was able to get started pruning a long hedge that was starting to obscure the view from the school's library.

The first two of these jobs went well in the main, although there was a certain amount of a 'make do and mend' approach before they were successfully completed. Apparently the water butt preferred to lean at an angle and needed a lot of persuasion to sit straight. Eventually the deployment of four flagstones, a bag of sand and a few blocks of stone ensured that it did as it was told and would not be a danger to a passing infant. Then they discovered that the holes at the top and bottom of the butt were the wrong size for the pipe fittings. Quick as a flash Tony took out his "handy, multi-functional, everybody should have one" tool to cut them to the correct size. Phew! Thanks to an earlier visit from Graham to drill a hole through the wall the butt could, at last, be joined to the underground pipe laid four years ago!

Water butt installation complete -
and to European safety standards

Meanwhile I erected the wooden retaining wall. This was not easy when I kept running out of the right kinds of wood and nails. Luckily there was a secret store of hidden treasure in one of the sheds - a few bits of wood that could, with a bit of ingenuity, be put to good use. Unfortunately there were no extra nails of the right length. The long ones kept sticking out at the back and had to be bent over to keep them safe and the short ones only just penetrated the wooden boarding and the pegs. I tried rescuing some bent ones only to have them bend on me again, a really annoying event! Once these wayward bits of metal were finally removed, with great difficulty, I gave in and used the shorter nails that we had in abundance. Quite how long the wood will remain in an upright position is anyone's guess. Perhaps it is just as well that there is no photographic record of this structure!

After lunch in the warm boiler room (what luxury when the wind is howling and the snow is swirling) ..........

.........we got on with the other two tasks, laying some flagstones along the edge of the bog garden and removing a large, unidentified bush from a flower bed so that the area could be used as a herb garden. Both of these jobs involved getting our wellies and spades very muddy indeed. 

Please note - the slabs are off-set by design - 

it is not due to poor slab laying skills of the NCVs!

Amazingly, by 1:45pm the tasks were all completed and we were able to start cleaning the mud off ourselves and the tools. Good job really because the snow had started to fall quite thickly by then and we needed to head for home in case the road to Nidderdale became impassable. 

Ros (E)