As regular followers will know the Broadway Volunteers have visited Taunton in the past to reclaim valuable imperial bricks being made available as a result of the work being undertaken on Project Taunton, and specifically on the building of the Northern Inner Distributor Road.
Well a group of 12 volunteers decided they would go on a 2 day mission to recover as many bricks as possible over a 2 day period, stopping overnight in order to get as many hours in as possible. This was undertaken on Monday and Tuesday of this week and what an extraordinary mission it was!
There was serious omission in my Taunton Post in that I omitted to acknowledge the great favour Pete from Building Services did for us by taking all of the pallets down to Taunton on the Sunday. This was very much encroaching on his own (and wife's!) time and we couldn't have done it without him. Thanks Pete!!
With great assistance from the contractors on site (Birse Rail) piles of bricks were deposited for the lads to cherry pick the best of the bricks. These were then cleaned of any chunks of mortar and placed in bags on pallets.
Progressively throughout Monday the bags were filled and calculations of progress concluded that there would be two lorry loads of bricks for return to Broadway.
With arrangements made for a second pick up of bricks on Wednesday, the lads set to on Tuesday and filled as many bags as possible, in order to "fill" two lorries. In the end 17 bags were dispatched on Tuesday evening and 16 remained for pick up on Wednesday morning.
I have seen some valiant efforts from the GWR volunteers over the years, but this must rank up with the best of them. The exercise was well organised by Tony Boucher and all of the gang work themselves to a standstill over the two days. You've done us proud chaps, I cannot thank you enough!
Here are a selection of other Jo Roesen photos taken over the two days. Pictures paint a thousand words as they say!
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| The Taunton heroes! (minus Jo behind the camera) |
There was serious omission in my Taunton Post in that I omitted to acknowledge the great favour Pete from Building Services did for us by taking all of the pallets down to Taunton on the Sunday. This was very much encroaching on his own (and wife's!) time and we couldn't have done it without him. Thanks Pete!!
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| Birse Rail do their bit |
With great assistance from the contractors on site (Birse Rail) piles of bricks were deposited for the lads to cherry pick the best of the bricks. These were then cleaned of any chunks of mortar and placed in bags on pallets.
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| the super makeshift brick cleaning bench |
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| Back breaking, wrist aching work |
Progressively throughout Monday the bags were filled and calculations of progress concluded that there would be two lorry loads of bricks for return to Broadway.
I have seen some valiant efforts from the GWR volunteers over the years, but this must rank up with the best of them. The exercise was well organised by Tony Boucher and all of the gang work themselves to a standstill over the two days. You've done us proud chaps, I cannot thank you enough!
Here are a selection of other Jo Roesen photos taken over the two days. Pictures paint a thousand words as they say!
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| Ron Brizlen and Co. Thanks for going Ron! |
6 comments:
Wow thats amazing.. theres lots of blue corner bricks for the base of the station... did you recover any of those decorative ones the likes of which go round the toddington station above window height?
im sorry i live too far away to help.
Are you going to be able to recover all the bricks at taunton ?
Taunton did not have any decorative bricks - we got the bricks from the base of a former coaling stage, part of the former engine shed. We did get quite a few plinth and bullnose blues though. We're very happy with what we managed to get.
We can't get all the bricks at Taunton. We had a brief window in which to grab all that we could, and the shed site has now been levelled.
Glad you were able to get a good haul from the old yard. Are you planning on going back to Taunton for more at a later stage?
Garry,
We are always looking for opportunities to get the right materials and I believe Taunton still has some more to offer!
Especially the spear fencing, if that ever becomes available!
Terry
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