Wholaw Nook Depot – Habergham Eaves, Burnley
For much of the last 200 years this site was a moor land farmstead, however more recently it has been used as a stone and rubble store by Lancashire County Councils Highways Maintenance service. As the site is no longer needed by Highways Maintenance it was cleared and planted as a new woodland. The site is on the outskirts of Burnley and is in an area that has seen much investment in the local environment including;
- Pennine Bridleway
- Clowbridge reservoir circular route
- Rossendale Valley Sailing Club - new clubhouse and visitor facilities
- Forest of Burnley – Dunockshaw Community Woodland
- Burnley Way improvements
The Project
The project fell into three main parts:
- Removal of the existing stone and rubble stores
- Plant a new woodland and carryout improvements to the Burnley Way, which runs through the site
- Create 4 public sculptures alongside the Burnley Way, using stone already present on site
A simple timetable was used to plot over time the various steps that had to be gone through to get the project finished. It help focus on all the aspects of the scheme and the realistic time table.
Project Steps
1. Production of a visualisation - a landscape designer was commissioned to draw a visualisation of the finished project to show to the land owners, neighbouring land owners, contractors and potential funders what was going to be ultimately achieved on site.
2. Clearance of the stone and rubble - discussions were carried out on site with a contractor who had experience of this type of work. The first step was to have a earth moving machine on site for 2 weeks to quantify volumes of material.
3. Carry out minor works – these were needed to secure the site, improve access and make it safe for the public. The work included boundary fencing, and walls, stile replacement, footpath improvements, making safe derelict building and the fixing of 4 large art stones (to be carved later in the project). A bill of quantities and specification was prepared and sent to three local contractors. The most competitive of the contractors was appointed to carryout the works.
4. Tree planting was carried out - trees and tree guards were purchased locally from a heath initiative nursery and the contractor previously used for the minor works was asked to quote a price to plant 300 trees. He was then employed to plant the trees.
5. Stone carving - a brief was written and sent to local artist/sculptors which asked them to present their ideas and costs. An artist was chosen and appointed based on ideas and price and a timetable was drawn up.
6. The final part of the project is to carve four stones, depicting the theme of ‘Four Seasons in One Day’which, many local people know, is the type of weather that can be experienced at anytime of the year in this part of the world. Two public have a go weekends were arranged, encouraging local people to come up to Whalow Nook and try their hand at carving.
The Future
As the project is still in progress some elements are still to be finished. These include:
- Provision of information board - rough sketches of the information board have been drawn and draft text written. Local historians have been included in discussions with the illustrator on the final content of the boards.
- Opening event – to publicise and promote the site and Burnley Way.
- Site maintenance - small sum of money held back to cover items such as tree weeding, weeding of site from noxious weed invasion (thistle, ragwort) and regular checks that will need to be made on site. This work will be carried out by contractors.
Lessons Learnt
The most difficult starting point was attempting to quantify the amount of rubble to be removed from site initially. The practical, common sense solution was initially get a machine to pile it up as a first task.
We were fortunate to discover that large quantities of waste stone have a value. The stone on site was taken away for free by a local company that crushes and recycled this type of material. This may not always be the case however as the company had empty lorries running past the site on a return journey from a landfill site.