The big news this month is that the fire pit has finally been completed after 4 months of work. This is a major achievement by the Community GreenSpace volunteers and we hope it will become a focal point for the school children and the wider community in the future.
In the September report we described how the digging out the pit into the side of the site (30ft by 30ft square, with a 4ft high back tapering down to nothing at the front) had been completed, and the base of the pit had been levelled. The next task was to bolster the sides of the pit using the oak railway sleepers we had purchased using a grant from Belper Town Council. These sleepers had to be cut to size, stacked into place and then permanently fixed with large professional screws and bolts. This was undertaken by parent Howard Morris. The pictures below show how the job progressed.
Start of sleeper side installation
Sleeper sides half completed
Sleeper sides of fire pit complete.
Once the sides had been completed we had to turn our attention to the seating around the edge. Originally we had planned to use sliced logs, but a donation from Hazelwood firm Lubrizol Ltd allowed us to buy the material for high quality larch benches instead.
On the 27th October the materials for the benches arrived at the bottom of Church Steps and a huge party of volunteers worked all day to carry the materials to the site, install the benches and complete the fire pit with stones gathered from the site to form the base for the burner and chipped bark to cover the base. The bench carpentry was by parent Ben Rogers. The pictures below show all the hard work as the day progressed.
Finally the fire pit was complete.
Even the GreenSpace chickens gave it their seal of approval!
Another big project which was being worked on alongside the creation of the fire pit was the clearance of our newly acquired adjacent allotment to the GreenSpace. In the September report we described how this plot had become vacant so we took over its tenancy in September. We have all sorts of plans for the area – creation a a sensory maze being one, but first we had to clear it, because it was completely overgrown, as can be seen in the picture below.
The Arthur’s Plot before clearance, September 2021
As can be imagined, this was a daunting task, but with work parties of volunteers working diligently every Sunday and Monday for the last two months slowly the place has been transformed and is now almost completely clear, as can be seen below. Stone and wood terracing has been repaired and added, and primulas and lavenders donated by local co-op Earthed Up, along with aquilegia rescued from the site, planted up.
