Training Day at a Bothy on Holy Island
In
Autumn last year 2010 Ray Stockdale of English Heritage and Brendan Teasdale of
Team Force Restoration held a one day training session to demonstrate the
techniques of soft capping. Students from local heritage companies, heritage
conservation officers, and architect were present at the one day demonstration.
The tops of masonry walls used to be consolidated with either lime mortar and stone or even sometimes with cement, this meant that any rain would simply wet the top of the wall then run down the wall and over time damaging the wall not to mention the unsightly water marks that it left.
Soft
capping sometimes exists were vegetation has grown over the top of a stone wall
however if this is not the case we can cap the wall with a soft capping
ourselves to help protect the wall from water damage, the soft capping acts
like a sponge soaking up the water then releasing it gradually.
There are two main techniques that we use and all students were given the chance to lend a hand.
Picture
1 shows a traditional natural soft cap, the turf was removed from its natural
environment near the Bothy as the chances of success were higher. Firstly the
stone is consolidated then a 
layer of turf is folder over for the base of the
capping. In picture 7 you can see the top layer of turf, this is then pegged
down with hard wood pegs until the two layers of turf knit together, all that
is now needed is for the edges to be trimmed.
In picture 2 puddle clay was used and built up in a kind of hump to the top of the masonry and in picture 6 the new turf capping was used this was then netted and pegged in place, this method is sometimes used in Scotland and is designed to shed water off the wall.
The turf is then monitored for a few days and watered to make sure of its survival, a long term maintenance free solution is the outcome.
Created: 24/01/2011 - [Team Force Restoration Ltd © 2012]