Bridging a Ditch

 

To complete the fencing and open up all the paddocks, we need to bridge a ditch.

In the picture below we've just laid the plastic pipe that will take the water through the bridge. We got this pipe from Clarkes of Walsham.

These plastic pipes are so much easier to use than the old china ones and cost about £70 a time. You do need to dig the ditch out properly, but there are no joins in the pipe.


Note the scaffold pole used to take the blue water pipe across the ditch. This will be buried in the bridge.

The end walls for the bridge are built with sandbags. Very traditional and again from Clarkes.


Note how they are laid like bricks and also slightly angled inwards so that they are stronger. All the sandbags were transported by the faithful John Deere garden tractor and trailer.

The other end of the bridge has now been started.


The pipe has now been covered by stone, so that the drainage for the bridge is good.


Note that we bought the stone from Buildbase in Haverhill. The driver dropped it directly into the ditch, by just cutting the bottom of the bag it came in. Very easy and civilised.

More sandbags have now been added.


Note that there are still a row or two to go.

The bridge is then filled in with some of the soil dug out from the building of the offices.


What we have tried to do, is minimise the amount of soil and rubble removed from the site. Regulations mean that most of it has to go, as it may well be contaminated.