Working over a period of 3 years to bring this projects to reality to save and secure this schedule national monument, the project being a protected monument and a site of special scientific interest meant a lot of paperwork and preliminary work to get everything lined up to proceed with the project. Adding to this the only access to the site was a steep winding footpath and the monument was positioned halfway up a 8 metre revetment. The First task after the initial collapse was to safety fence the job with temporary fencing this then turned into permanent wooden fencing while all the paper work was completed to complete the repair.
We had to create a safe working area, with signage and fencing then improve the footpath access track and temporarily remove a pedestrian gate. We had to create an access track using trackway to protect the sssi site from our fleet of specialist tracked dumpers and grab equipped excavators.
Once we’d gained access we had to careful remove the existing masonry and store for re use, the ground level had be scoured away undercutting the base of the dry stone adit walls. We carefully imported fill and built up a mass bund at the toe of the slope to re anchor the base of the wall consolidating it with our sheepsfoot roller on our mini excavator.
Working closely with our engineering partners we had designed a mass retaining wall of large limestone boulders to build back up the slope to the old foundation layer of the buttress walls. These had to be loaded on the road and brought into the site via the 1m footpath via out track dumpers. Once the base wall was in, we carefully began the process of rebuilding the buttress walls utilising our grab equipped excavators as some of the foundation stones were in excess of 500kg each.
Working with our team of experience masons we rebuilt the buttress walls and following the engineers instructions grouted the rear of the face with concrete and limestone rubble fill.
Once the walls were carefully rebuilt, a process of extreme care as the collapsed section was very precarious. We covered the large limestone and bund with some soil and seed and then worked our way out of the lower site, restoring the path and gates as we went.
At the top of the site we had to rebuild the collapsed dry stone wall and slightly re root the wall to allow for the collapsed sections on a new concrete footing, we then created a earth bund reinforced with green Matt 200 geotechnical seeding membrane with specialist seed and soil.
We installed a new stone kerb and step to redirect the water off the road. And along the new bund.
The site was left tidy and clean for the general public. Another successful project completed for the National Trust and the Peak District National Park.
Comments