A Wonderful Find.
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When we started the garden nearly ten years ago I built some rather posh compost bins in one corner of the garden. Since the area right next to our boundary was rather well covered in extremely sharp brambles and very painful nettles I placed the bins about 4 metres in from the edge. That empty space was used over the time as a dumping ground for all the plant material which one is not supposed to place on the compost heap, dock roots, ground elder, couch grass roots and such like. The heap that grew was covered over with black plastic sheeting and left to its own devices. For a long time the only visitor was our cat who could locate, kill and extract mice from under the plastic with amazing ease.
Eventually I needed some top soil for another garden project, so the remains of the plastic was removed to reveal a huge mound of beautiful soil. This I barrowed away, leaving us with a space about 4 metres wide and 8 metres long. We needed an area in which to put the material waiting to be shredded and the sacks of already shredded material. So I began to level it out ready to put a path down. As is usual in this garden the spade went Clang! Just below soil level was a large boulder. In clearing it up and the rest of the area I managed to find enough rocks to build a rather nice Alpine feature elsewhere in the garden.
The work of levelling proceeded quite nicely, though there was an incredible amount of broken slate, house brick, scrap metal in the soil, until I reached the hedge. This hedge must have been layered many years ago. The Ash tree has grown from the layered upwards to at least 15 metres. At the base of this tree I uncovered what looked to be another huge boulder, about 1 metre wide and half a metre across. It went down into the soil a good distance too.
After a lot of digging and clearing roots I managed to clear the area round it and to dig down to where it sat on the soil. It was far too heavy to move and it was down in a hole. I dug down on the hedge side intending to get a scaffolding pole under the boulder in order to lever it out up the ramp had made. You can imagine my surprise when I found that the underside of it appeared to be hollow
When I had managed to turn it 90 degrees with a lot of effort and help, I was even more thrilled to discover that rather than it being a boulder with a concave underside, it was in fact a hand-carved sandstone cattle trough.
There now remained just a few problems. We needed to find somewhere to place it to make it into a feature and we needed to find a way of moving it there across soft grass, it is very heavy. Also, if we were going to plant it up as another place for alpine plants, then it would need holes drilling in the base. My electric drill is not strong enough to do that.
Finally there was an even more ‘peculiar’ difficulty: the gap between the end of the Compost bins and the fence round another part of the garden is less than the length of the trough!
Eventually our son in law visited and brought with him a professional sized drill and the kind of drill bit used for cutting holes for drainpipes etc.
After taking some advice on the probable value of the trough we decided that the best position for it was well away from the road.
This is part of an old ‘cobbled’ path down the side of the garden. It probably went from the road down to a house which disappeared some time before 1860. We have been looking for sometime for some feature to put there and the trough seems ideal. There is also the advantage that it is all downhill from where the trough was left.
Moving the Trough.
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Since the first part of the trough’s journey would be over grass, we had to wait until Spring and for the ground to be firm enough to take the weight of the trough. At last all those years of watching programmes about ancient Egypt and reading Asterix the Gaul stories were to come in useful. I had some round pieces of fence post to use as rollers. Using scaffolding poles as levers my son and I got the trough up on to the rollers and turned to face the correct way. It had to go on its side as there was not enough room for it to fit past the end of the Compost bin. Then it was just a case of letting it slide and swapping the roller from the back to the front.
Turning the corner where the cobbled path meets the grass path was probably the most difficult part of the job, mainly because there was nothing for the levers to push against except soft grass. However, we managed to turn the corner and get the trough over the step down. We did have to stand the trough up on its side as the path was not wide enough.
The unevenness of the cobbles did not prove a problem and the trough rolled easily down to its final position.
With a little effort and judicious use of levers, the trough was settled in place and levelled.
Filling the Trough.
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I covered the large drainage hole with a piece of zinc gauze. Then a layer of rubble was added. Next came a 5 cm. layer of sharp sand and the same of 5 mm. grit.
We are fortunate (?) in having a large number of pieces of rock in the garden. I selected those which were the shape I wanted and which match the cobbled path on which the trough now resides.
The compost is a fairly standard mix of a soil based JI No.2 to which is added the same volume of 5 mm grit. I also incorporated a small amount of Perlite. This holds moisture so that the compost does not dry out too quickly.
I used the rocks to create a series of crevices of different widths and filled up the spaces with more compost. Finally a layer of pea shingle was placed over the whole surface. I used this instead of the 5 mm grit to match the gravel mulch we have used in the rest of the garden.
I think it looks well in its new position.
And now for the exciting part, when the soil has settled I can begin planting.
