Trial Build at Brackenside

Marking out the profiles for the steel end-plates

I decided to undertake a trial build at Brackenside Farm, where I live. This would enable us to work through any difficulties with easy access to the workshop and a forklift. John Barber kindly allocated an area of concrete outside his grain drier, for the purpose. I contacted Peter Bennett of Digital Surveys to arrange a surveyor to set out the positioning of the steel end-plates, at the final site and at Brackenside. This was completed on Thursday 2nd August. There was a 5mm difference in slope between the two sites.

Stephen Mather and Stuart Graham of Holburn Smithy, anchored the endplates to the concrete on August 3rd.

Rolland and Hugo McMorran, sons of William McMorran the architect, pitched up on Sunday 5th August for a week of hard work assembling the bridge structure. This was completed on Friday 10th August. To our consternation we found that the two longest projections of the bridge upset the level of the deck. One end was out by 180mm and the other by 60mm. We overcame the problem by jacking up those corners, thanks to the analysis of the problem by James Barber who is studying engineering at Newcastle. The consulting architect and engineer both thought that the beams were fighting each other and that there was a need to have the noggins placed and tightened up within the structure to resolve the problem. The jury is out on this until the visit of the engineer to the finall site on Wednesday 26th September.



Rather than begin to take measurements for the oak noggins which are to seperate the beams, Charlie Poulsen and I decided to take the bridge apart and get it down to the final site.

The beams were delivered to the site by Hugh Burn on Wednesday 29th August. Thanks to the Estate forestry deppartment and Neil Mole we were able to bring the beams through the wood and into the garden more easily than had been originally antiscipated.


Hugh Burn at the controls!