The mid-week gang were out in force this morning – well, Mick and I went along at least. Our intention was to finish off removing the redundant fence behind the Platform 1 vegetable garden and provide some revetment to prevent the embankment sliding down into the produce! We agreed an outline plan with John the gardener and set to work in a passenger and train free environment.
In the best traditions of the GWSR we re-used some railway sleepers – plenty more life left in the these vintage editions – and they are suitably rustic with obvious areas of rot. (Pre-aged I think the term is – like the volunteers at Cheltenham Racecourse Station!) The embankment itself is steeply graded (too much so, one suspects – probably why it tends to collapse forward slowly like a west country iceberg) and we had ‘fun’ digging out several barrow loads of clay. As one can see from the photo we have several more cubic metres to go! However, some progress was made and by the end of the morning this was the result:
It is defintiely a work in progress and we have some more sleepers to add plus some fixings to apply but the overall effect will, I hope, be a more stable and even neater garden area for visitors to enjoy. Inevitably, given the time of year, plenty of good Gloucestershire clay was spread onto the platform and my assistant/supervisor/mentor had to spend some time sweeping up in case the Billy Goat (see blogs passim) gets gruff!!
Yours,
Tim & Mick, The Mid-Week Gang
This forbidden garden isn’t reached via passing through a wardrobe is it? Regards, Paul.
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