First floor in, annex nearly up, earthworks taking shape

Just three weeks to the day since builders Kilburn and Johnson started work on the tower the first floor is in and the scale and proportions of the main room begin to emerge. Here we are looking south with the doorway to the annex on the left. Straight ahead are the existing doors, to disappear this week as the south wall is opened up for the glazed curtain wall.

This is the first floor of the annex. The blockwork in the foreground is the start of the kitchen walls. The embankment has been cleared of invasive vegetation and graded down to the tanked retaining wall of the ground floor, now below ground. That wall is thicker than the walls of the tower itself. Over-engineered? Maybe.

This view from Station Road shows how the water tower has regained its prominence at the entrance to Settle Station. The earth bank to the left has been much reduced. The first floor of the annex is evident to the left of the tower. Note the railings on top of the tank, completed yesterday.

Further left than the previous shot, the now much reduced earth bank has had its tree stumps removed and a row of massive, presumably glacial, rounded boulders have been lined up along the edge of a single zig-zag pathway up the slope. These boulders were just below ground level at the top of the mound.   The impression is that they were there since time immemorial so maybe this was a moraine?   The majesty of the wall to the rear has been enhanced by the lowering of the land in front of it. Whitelock's digger men have worked hard today and created a useful area from what had been a steep wilderness.