Pike Lock Progress Report
Pike Lock Progress Report
by: Andy P.
Some new visitors arrived recently, having walked across the main road with the family
Some gentle persuasion with the fence guided them towards the dam and the water. The pipes caused some confusion so I walked carefully past them. Big daddy swan was not too pleased rearing up to his full height and looked me in the eye and hissed furiously. A plank was laid so they could all walk across to finally make it into the water.
Duncan and the other construction team have made a start with digging out the material left over when Pike Bridge was restored in 2005. There is a lot of material to be shifted and it is heavily compacted.
Dams have been built and lots of water has to be pumped out every time
Now it’s hand digging to try to find the hopefully brick base and then to form a concrete base for the stop planks
We have been slowly finishing off the brick work with Steve doing a lot of drilling and tying in the front bricks to the back wall. No idea how many, but we have gone through several big boxes.
We have dismantled and replaced a lot of the brick work along the wing walls as much of them had collapsed. Slow progress as it’s tricky infilling with new bricks
We are now able to start to replace the coping stones.
The offside wall was far more difficult due to the sheer size of some of the coping stones. Lots of heaving and shoving and back breaking manoeuvring is involved.
