PRACTICE MEET, BURNEDGE BENT, APRIL 2026
Practice Meet: 12th April 2026
Venue: Burnedge Bent Farm, Grasscroft
Conditions: Pretty much every type of Spring weather!
In the 11 months since we had last repaired a couple of large gaps at Burnedge Bent, a couple more had opened up. Maybe it’s a consequence of the recent very wet winters that has caused the ground to slump under the walls or maybe it’s just that the walls are old, but these collapses seem to be happening more frequently. And once the sheep have discovered a short-cut through them, they become quite worn down.
We split into two groups of 6 and 5 led by Lee and Paul, and set to work making the sections of wall either side of the gaps safe and then worked down to something level and in line with the rest of the wall, which could then be built up again. Inevitably, these collapses pull the adjacent sections of wall out of line, as they peel over, and the foundation stones at the bottom slump out sideways, so the gap usually ends up quite a bit larger than it was originally was, before the rebuild can start. After some heavy duty wrangling to get the huge foundation stones back in place, we got going, making good progress throughout the morning.
One advantage of working high up at Burnedge Bent (it’s at around 300m elevation), are the great views across the area. You can also see the weather coming in and it was certainly doing that with a vengeance at times, with some short, sharp, April hail showers. We stopped for an earlyish lunch in the barn, when it was clear that a much larger and more prolonged shower was heading our way, and waited it out, aided by some delicious lemon drizzle cake baked by Paul.
Once the rain and hail had eased off, we headed back out and worked steadily for the rest of the afternoon. It was actually quite pleasant when the sun came out and at one point there were a pair of skylarks singing beautifully, above us. Quite a lot of extra stone was required for our gap, as there was almost no packing left (a possible cause of the collapse?). Fortunately, there was spare stone quite close by that had been left over from previous work and we formed a chain to carry some bucket loads across. Finally, with a bit of “creative” topping (due to the usual shortage of suitable toppers), we finished our repair and headed over to help the other group finish off their gap. Here, they had been working with some really challenging stone, and had also needed additional stone. They had done well to get the wall nearly up to height and a decision was made to leave the toppers to another day, as the wall was now stockproof. The day finished in glorious Spring sunshine.
Kathy England
