'Barn storming' and Extreme 'Coping'

Workstation 1 inside Greystones barn

Mine & Andy's  first box, latest design

Today was spent at Greystones with over 20 WT staff & volunteers led by Richard & John for the day's task. So what do you get with lots of drills, screws, saws,  25 'flat packs',  battens {to be cut to specific lengths}, instructions, pencils and several workstation tables? The answer is 25 of the latest designed Barn Owl boxes. The Barn owl box design main features were a removable top to allow 'use' monitoring and waste clearance, an entrance positioned to suit the hoped for 'owlets' {they have to be strong enough to reach the opening}, an outside platform allowing ease of re-entry for owlets. Given the number of people and materials it was fortunate we had a barn we could 'storm' and get the production lines set up. The aim for the day was for everyone to be involved in the production of at least one Barn owl box and ideally to reach a total of 25 boxes. The overall aim of this WT project was to produce 60 Barn owl boxes to cover at least the Windrush{Dickler?}  habitat area. After this construction phase a choice/survey of suitable installation locations with willing landowners will be taking place. Happy days in the future for our Barn owls, at least from a housing perspective.

View over North park looking down on Sherborne house

Pat showing off Coping stones reset in an earlier build phase 

Team surveying next section of Coping to be reset

Arrived at Sherborne this wednesday to find Pat and James busily mixing up some lime mortar, in readiness for resetting the extremely large Coping stones on the 17th century wall which runs along the North Park boundary next to Clarkes Close. The Coping stones to be used were the originals from the ~1600s and were pretty heavy. This meant that Mike had to use the 'blue' tractor to lift the heavy weight stones to the top of the rebuilt wall sections.  With Pat and James located on the 'public' side of the wall and Mike with me on the other 'lower' side, it enabled us to move the Copng stones into place. The lime mortar was the 'fixing' agent and applied on top of the wall by James & Pat.

Escaped sheep in rape field, coming to see the wall rebuilding

Sheep being herded alongside Clarkes Close

Before we could start the 'Coping' I noticed that we had an unexpected audience. A small flock of sheep were heading in our direction and it was clear they had escaped from one of the nearby pastures in/close to North Park. Mike immediately organised the 'shepherding' of the nervous flock back towards the potential escape point. It soon became clear that the sheep would have to pass by Clarks Close so James was sent ahead to prevent them entering the wood. Eventually, and with expert handling!, we managed to get the sheep back to their pasture via the damaged fence section alongside the public footpath. Once all the sheep were back in their pasture some temporary fence repairs were carried out and the work on the Coping stones resumed. By the end of the morning we had completed the bottom Coping layer which left the Coping 'top' stones to be positioned in the afternoon. You have to appreciate the drystone wallers in the 1600s who carried out the original wall construction without the aid of a tractor, they must have been exceptionally strong!