A busy Saturday

Removal of the last bit of the ramp up to the threshold revealed the remains of a flight of massive stone steps and . . .

in a cavity below the right hand side of the steps is a large iron pipe whose position coincides with the now blanked off drain and valve in the tank above.

Whilst many lorry loads of spoil were being taken away I played with the industrial scale pressure washer on the lower parts of the exterior stone work. This is the north west corner. Contrast the clean stone with that further back.

Excavation of the big hole in which the annex will sit is complete. The footings will be dug, and maybe poured, on Monday.

Some lighter things

Digger driver Chris tucks in to his breakfast in the comfort of his cab.














This is the all day breakfast from Poppy's cafe in the middle of Settle. Just £3.



















Meanwhile, dumper driver Tom tucks in to a bacon buttie.




















Almost 20 feet tall by 4 feet wide this window opening has become a giant's doorway.

Centre rear window becomes an enormous doorway

Following yesterday's removal of the cast iron window frame, its massive stone sill did not give up without a struggle.

But it eventually succumbed to the attentions of builder Carl and digger driver Chris.

Before the day was out Carl Johnson had removed the wall below the sill and had rebuilt one side of the newly lowered opening. Note the square detail on the corners of the replacement stones, chiselled and cut to match the original stones above.

Meanwhile, I erected the scaffolding tower at the south west corner of the building. The intention is to clean up the stonework using a pressure washer and the needle gun where necessary, to remove the occasional iron bits and pieces and to repair the pointing where needed. The wall behind the scaffolding has been pressure washed. The improvement in appearance is subtle but worth it. The scaffolding tower will be wheeled clockwise around the entire building, doing a section at a time. The tower is high but the scaffolding is securely tied in to the building about 2/3rds of the way up.

Day 2 of building work

Big big impact made on the embankment by the big big digger. Here it is making easy work of a tree stump, somewhere near the middle of where the annex will be.

The embankment is being excavated back to one meter behind the rear wall of the annex - to allow for scaffolding. This meter wide space should then be able to take some of the embankment above it as infill, so lessening the severity of the slope.

The centre window at the rear of the tank house has been removed intact. It is proving to be very difficult to remove the section of wall below the window opening, so well built is it. Meanwhile, I have been putting up a scaffolding tower on the other side of the tower to provide access for stone cleaning and patch pointing. The stone is responding well to pressure washing, which is having no damaging effect on the lime mortar - apart from cleaning it. At every turn, the build quality of the tower is amazing.

A Building site at last

Things are happening. Builders Carl Johnson and Richard Kilburn started today and set about their work with gusto. They were keen to get started on the annex and at about 4pm asked if Whitelocks could be asked to get digging into the embankment, yesterday if possible. A phone call to John Whitelock resulted in a 13 tonne digger and a 10 tonne dumper just coming off another job being diverted to Settle for an early start in the morning.

Settle station in the steam era

Historic pictures, like buses, seem to come along in twos or threes.

This splendid image, from the late 1940s or early 1950s was on display and staring us in the face in a frame at Settle station. Bill Mitchell (see earlier post) thinks he may have taken it.

Of interest are the water tower with its bridge railings still intact,
the water crane at the bottom of the up platform ramp, its water supplied from the tower and the corresponding water crane in the middle distance at the end of the down platform.   Note the brazier by the nearest water crane, lit in winter to prevent freezing.   Horribly inefficient by today's standards.

There is no foot bridge and the tracks and pointwork are as they were in former years. So too the telegraph poles and wires, the wooden shed alongside the station, signals, gas lighting and (visible on the original) a poster advertising Carlisle Races.

Part of the dating evidence is a short length of flat bottomed rail on the up line to the far right - installed at Settle as an experiment.   All the rest is the older bull-head rail.

Garsdale water tower demolition

Former editor of The Dalesman, Bill Mitchell took this sad picture in the late 1960s or early '70s. It is of the Garsdale water tower, almost identical to Settle's, being demolished. He knew nothing of the demolition but happened upon it one day. This was the water tower where the local community used to hold dances in happier times. It, and six others along the S&C was demolished when steam ended its days. The Settle tower is the only survivor.

The return of steam to the main line meant that water supplies had to be restored where possible. A new tower was built at Appleby in 1991 and further south water is nowadays supplied to thirsty steamers from road tankers.

In these more heritage conscious times such a demolition would be unthinkable.