Saturday 23rd November
Drain the pit, finish placing hardcore, finish placing and compacting crush stone and how much of the hardcore was left?
Finally the hardstanding is completed and the shape of the future car park starts to appear: beyond the swing of the gates a steady rise. Under the gates we mounded crushed stone around the drop holes for the gate bolts formed last week.
With that job essentially completed we turned our attention to the remainder of the pile of hardcore. Thanks to John's experimentation last week we new that is we were to sort the finer fraction of the hardcore we could use that in the hardstanding at the east end of the site. Colin and Colin worked to sort though the last cubic metre or two of broken bricks and concrete to find those bits small enough to use. John and Peter covered them with crushed stone st that gradually that section of hard standing grew. The larger hardcore could be stockpiled on the newly formed hardstanding.
The final key job for for the day was the complete the "pit of despair", the catchpit on the east side of the entrance. A final course of brickwork was followed by setting the frame for the cover. It was very satisfying to finish that task.
The bonus was finding time to place the base of the inspection chamber on the west side of the gate. Once both these chambers and the two drawpits that mark the ends of the ducts under the entrance are completed there will be some final filling between these covers and the gateposts.
Thanks to Colin, Colin, John and Peter.
