Just catching up on a post I meant to write a while back – the day after I surveyed the site in the snow.
Whilst the site itself was only covered in a shallow few inches of snow, the snow on the Juggs Road (Drove Avenue) just on the northern side of the ridge leading towards the top of Newmarket Hill had drifted considerably. Also, working on-site in slippery conditions whilst using sharp slashing tools is not sensible from a Health & Safety point of view so, after a quick look around and history lesson, we all went home!
Looking SE at Newmarket Cottage site in snow; January 21st 2013.
I like snow – so am looking forward to helping clear the rest of the site of its brambles, etc tomorrow – in about 10cm or more of snow! Malcolm Emery, the Reserve Warden, agreed with me that we should go ahead as planned – unless it snows again in the night.
Looking N towards cottage site in brambles on right; January 21st 2013.
I was up on the hill today finishing off marking the major boundary wall junctions using Selbach’s 1921 plan and existing sections of wall lines as a guide. When I started this morning I had just one corner, a projected wall junction, and a half cleared site covered in snow. By the end of the day I had four corners and the two junctions of the internal garden/ farmyard wall. The northern boundary wall appeared to be a couple of meters further south than I expected – which meant it was well inside the modern fence-line. The south-west corner just kissed the modern fence-line. So the complete farm-site may well all be located within the Nature Reserve boundary.
Looking East along northern site boundary; January 21st 2013.
And the best thing of all – after estimating the directions of each of the walls, and attempting to measure off the distances from corner to corner – the corners were only a metre out, which for me is pretty bloomin’ good!
