Thursday, July 26, 2012

Bridge building 101.


This week we started work building a dry stone bridge over a small stream on a large country property .
Apart from a slight glitch with a nearly overturned tandem dump truck, it has been a very satisfying project.  
I hope to report on the progress fairly regularly over the next month.

Yesterday, the below ground work was done using huge random blocks of quarried dolomite 'wall-stone' all hearted with a couple of backhoe bucket-loads of smaller local stone. 




Stewart is our heavy machine operator. He has done an amazing job of excavating and helping us place and fit each of the large chunky foundation rocks.



The stone arched footbridge will be wide enough for a 'Gator' to drive over. ( Certainly wide enough for my crocks. )
We will use a lot of the field stone from the many old hedge rows on the property to do the dry stone ramped approaches, leading up to the two abutments of the bridge.