This month’s blog covers 16-year-old Dylan’s work experience at Langley House. As a Wivey Grower, Dylan tracks the progress of our exciting new creation…the roundhouse! This brilliant account once again illustrates the importance of our Wivey Grows’ team of volunteers as the project continues to grow.
Dylan’sWiveyGrows work experience:
I would like to start off by saying that my week at Langley House with WiveyGrows was a very enjoyable experience and that every team member was really helpful and extremely friendly.
My Work experience week started on a Tuesday and I began by working alongside Richard Adams. Richard and I wrote up and drew plans for a roundhouse which can be seen in images 1 and 2.
After drawing these plans and making all the necessary calculations, we headed out into the meadow to coppice some of the overgrown willow trees that needed some remedial work. Richard felled the trees and I processed them to remove brush before cutting them to length.
The following day, Richard and I continued coppicing a few of the Willow trees that had been left from Tuesday’s work, whilst Martin scythed an area of grass in preparation for the building of the new roundhouse. Richard left after three hours of hard work, so I joined the work of Martin and Kate. Kate and I went to the veg garden and weeded some of the woodchip pathways, before I joined the whole team meeting to present mine and Richards plans for the roundhouse. We discussed the thought process that had led to our final design and ran through the steps that would need to be followed during the construction.
On Thursday, Richard and I returned to the bottom of the meadow and we cut down 22 selected trees to be used as the roof poles, since they were extremely straight. We then carried them up to the area that Martin had cleared, laying the poles to the side ready for construction. Heading to the pile of prepared coppiced Willow, Richard and I collected another 22 posts that were most suitable for being used as vertical supports for the roof and walls. We sharpened the end of one pole and hammered it in the ground before deciding that was enough hard work for the day! (Images 3 and 4)
On Friday, Rich Lawrence came and we prepared materials for a bug hotel by painting pallets and tin cans or cutting bamboo. After three days of hard labour, this new work was certainly a welcomed change!
Lots of progress was made on Saturday as the open day provided lots of helping hands for the roundhouse and the rest of the Garden. By the end of the day, we had managed to secure all of the posts into the ground and a rail had been put across the top of some to provide security to the structure. (Images 5 and 6)
Overall, my experience at WiveyGrows was tremendous,the working environment at Langley House made the time I spent there extremely rewarding. Lastly,I would like to thank everyone from the WiveyGrows’ team for kindly taking me in and showing me all the hard work that they put in for the local community.