With about two thirds of the drive kerbed the 70 tonnes of limestone ordered prior to lockdown was delivered. It came in two loads both delivered on a massive truck that couldn’t access the driveway due to weight concerns and the inability to reverse such a large unit due to a narrow road and drainage ditches running down either side of it. As a result, the only solution was to tip it at the south boundary of the property in what we call the south gate as the road turns there and the truck can reverse off the bend and into the entrance way. Even then the truck was too big to get through the gate so had to tip outside the gate which is fortunately set well back from the road. It’s fair to say 70 tonnes is an enormous volume of stone (or it is to an amateur like me) and we began to wonder if the quantities were right. To move it a mini-digger and dumper truck were hired and we set to work repeatedly filling up the dumper with the gravel via the digger and driving it to the other side of the property where we tipped it on the drive spreading it out with large rakes.
Weed matting and gravel installed around the barn including the newly constructed car park next to the planters.
The idea was to cover the two thirds of the drive with the stone and then keep working up the last third edging it and covering it with the stone. However as we got to the last 20 or so metres of driveway it was decided to move the remainder of the stone to there, off hire the digger/dumper and finish off the last part of the job with standard barrows.
Piles of gravel waiting to me moved 'up' the drive as it is edged and final 20m being edged, matted and laid.
Eventually the entire drive was laid to the road (or just before it as we elected to stop just before the bridge section kerbing it off across the driveway to try and keep the gravel at bay) and the final job was to install driveway lighting. Armoured cable was laid along the kerb edgings and buried 300mm down surfacing at each point the lights were to be installed. Concrete bases were poured at each of these points ensuring the armoured cabling was exiting each base in the centre and 450mm square flags were then drilled centrally to allow the cables to pass through them and these were mortared onto the concrete bases. 500mm stainless steel post lights were then sourced and these were mounted on each of the flags with the armoured cables running up the centre of each post to facilitate the wiring of each one. An additional floodlight was provided at the gate entrance and this is mounted in a convenient tree next to the entrance. The cabling is connected via a photocell and override switch in the barn to provide automatic drive lighting dusk till dawn.
A couple of shots of the finished article once it had all 'blended in' to the surroundings.
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