PRACTICE MEET, BURNEDGE BENT, MAY 2025

Date: 10th May 2025

Location: Burnedge Bent Farm, Grasscroft

Conditions: A pleasantly warm and dry Spring day,

Glorious Gapping: We had a request to repair a couple of gaps in the field walls at Burnedge Bent, from James and Chris Crowther, who graze their sheep on the land. On arrival, we quickly decided to split up into two groups, with one led by Chris and Lee and the other by Paul, assisted by Kathy. We agreed to meet up at lunchtime to check on progress.

The thing about mending gaps is that you never quite know how much work is going to be involved until you have cleared the fallen stone and checked the integrity of the walls on either side of the gap. It might look like quite a small task to start with, but it can quickly escalate into something quite a lot more involved. Why has the wall collapsed? Will you have to take down more of the wall to make it safe to work on? Is there sufficient stone to put it back up again? Can you identify enough toppers to complete the wall?

It quickly became apparent that we would need to take down some more walls on either side of our gap and that we would need to clear the gap all the way down to the foundations. It looked like the collapse had been caused by the sloping ground slumping away underneath the wall due to the very wet winter conditions. The sheep had then been using the gap as a regular shortcut through to the other side.

Once we had cleared the stone down to the ground and made each side safe to work on, we set up some pins and lines and got building. The wall went back up quite smoothly, and we carefully tied it back into the rest of the wall on either side as we went along. Good progress had been made by lunchtime, and the two groups met up to compare notes. With a bit of scavenging for stone, the wall was back up to height and was topped by late afternoon. Hopefully, it will be good for a while yet, but collapses like this are likely to become more frequent if we continue to have prolonged periods of very wet weather.

The other group also successfully completed the rebuild of their gap, slightly ahead of us. Altogether, a very satisfying day of walling, accompanied by the call of lapwings and the song of Skylarks.

Report by Kathy England