Posted by Rob Boden on November 30, 2011 at 11:59:50 user humyar.
I'm starting a new thread to report on my meeting today with the Forestry Commission Warden, Mark. Many thanks, Mark for your time and support. Mark knows of the AR connections, and we had an interesting chat as we followed the purple route from Machell Coppice car park. We went anti-clockwise, which I haven't done before - I usually go up the rough track up from the gate near the two forestry houses. But the purple route is a lovely walk, and you suddenly come out onto the Dogs Home – it's quite stunning!
Mark quickly identified one major problem: the roofing timbers are rotten which has caused the tiles to come off. Indeed we found a piece of rafter with some tiles still attached on the ground at the back! Looking inside, the main central beam isn't even attached to the eastern end gable. This could be rot, or could be indicative of the bigger problem: the end eastern gable wall is bowing outwards significantly and may have pulled clear of the central beam.This is clear on the Lakeland Cam photo too.
Mark thinks the roof needs a complete replacement; but actually worse is that first the walls need stabilising or even rebuilding in places. He reckons there's not much point in doing a temporary roof repair, nor would it be easy to do as the rotten and broken timbers wouldn't hold any roof nails.
So we agreed that he will get the Forestry Commission (FC) building surveyor to assess the damage and estimate the costs of the works needed. It may be that the FC could help with such things as getting tools and equipment and materials up to the site, and even supply local timber for the rafters, battens etc, but otherwise they don't really have money for this sort of restoration project. There is though a dire warning that as the FC has a responsibility for public safety, it may be that the building would be declared unsafe and levelled. I did ask that it could be fenced off instead.
We talked about bidding for grants for any works, and we agreed that working in partnership was a positive for this, as would be a package with an interpretative noticeboard at the car park explaining the Dogs home and encouraging families especially to walk to it (he said the FC has a workshop where such a sign might be constructed).
Other ideas we touched on were rebuilding a charcoal burners wigwam – the FC have a map with all such features identified on it; and whether TARS or another group of volunteers could effectively adopt the route including doing some work on the path (it needs localised drainage) and generally keeping an eye on it and the car park. The purple route could even become the Picts and Martyrs trail! I have to say I found all this really exciting.
I will report further when the surveyor has done her work. I am happy to keep up my involvement and if necessary put in grant bids and maintain any partnership with the Forestry Commission.
So in one way the rush to do something urgently has gone - because it is just not practicable - but there is a bigger task to achieve significant funding for a bigger but long term restoration, and to develop a wider perspective of what could be achieved here.