The best made bin store in the west!

....... In the North West, that is. This last week the volunteer centre at High Wray Basecamp has been full of the sound of chiselling, sawing and hammering. Along with our woodland ranger Richard, we've been hard at work with our second National Trust green woodwork working holiday. Last year we made a new woodstore for Basecamp - this years project is the glamorous sounding recycling store for the grounds of Wray Castle.


Taking advantage of the good weather to work outside on the second day

So, a bin store. Could have been a hard sell for a green woodwork project, but there's good reason for making a really good job of it. The recycling at the castle is currently stored in a small, damp and difficult to get to stone tunnel round the back of the castle. This inaccesibility meant the big recycling trucks were having difficulty getting to it, so we needed a new location that was easier to get to. However, this new location is close to the front of the castle - which means our timber framed shed needs to look good! We can also use the prominent location to put some information up about how it was built and who built it, making a talking point about it and making sure the volunteers are credited.


In the woodland at the end of the first day with the hand hewn 'Transoms'

It's been a busy week. We started in a local woods and felled some trees to cut to size and shape the 'transoms', big supporting struts that run along the side of the shed. This takes a long time, so the rest of the wood was cut to size by our wood mill and delivered to Basecamp. The rest of the week has been spent cutting mortice and tenon joints, shaping jowl posts, making pegs and many other chiselling and sawing tasks. We also had to lay the foundations for the shed at the castle, a job not made any easier by the bedrock we hit a few inches down .....



The Basecamp workshop in full swing later in the week when the weather wasn't so kind ..

The first block for the base goes in ...

By Thursday evening we're looking well on track to get the frame in place tomorrow - a barn raising moment! There'll be more to do on the shed after that so look for further updates on future blogs ......

Like the sound of this? For more information on National Trust working holidays go to:

http://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/holidays/working-holidays/

By Rob Clarke, Basecamp Community Ranger