Big infrastructure work at Barby Meadow Woods

This weekend we finished the structure of the crossing over brook which runs down through the centre of Barby Meadow Woods, acting quickly to complete before the weather turns against us for the rest of the week/year. Approximately 500 sandbags, 8 tons of ballast, 2 tons of cement, 30m of reinforcing steel rebar, many litres of sweat and thousands of calories expended and we have a great result!

Each hessian sandbag was filled with a dry mix of ballast and cement in a 4:1 ration, this will naturally absorb moisture and set hard. We also re-enforced the walls with 16mm steel rebar which will help stop any movement. Choosing the build in this way we felt was more sympathetic to the environment that alternatives and it will also be visually pleasing one the natural material of the bags starts to weather and rot.

We’ll shortly finish filling it in with hardcore and a layer of stone on top as a finishing touch. Thank you to all the very many volunteers who helped with this big job - many hands really did make much lighter work of it! It was an important milestone and crucial for us to complete at this stage - within 6-8 weeks we hope to start the tree planting.

This crossing is a key part of the project infrastructure and our largest undertaking to date. We’ve designed and built it to last the test of time and it will be carrying people and vehicles for decades to come!