BTCV Edinburgh Diary

We were at Hopetoun House all this week, laying a snazzy new path for the patrons of the Antiques Roadshow to wander along, from which they could admire the house. Luckily a digger had been the week before and cleared out 6 inches of mud from the 100m section of path, so we didn't have to!

On Tuesday we laid and compacted all of the 6 tonnes of hardcore that we had. There was a lot of shovelling and a lot of wheelbarrowing. We finished off with a bit of rhododendron clearance and a fire.

Having done that first section, the following days' groups had even further to go with the wheelbarrows. We'd had more material delivered, this time it was old road surface, allegedly from the Forth Road Bridge... So on Wednesday one group continued with the wheelbarrowing and compacting, while another group got the fire going again for the rhododendron.

Thursday started with quite an impressive snow-shower which luckily cleared up to leave a beautiful sunny afternoon. We finished off the path, burnt the rest of the rhodie, and left the place looking a lot more presentable than when we'd arrived.

Posted by BTCV Edinburgh at 15:50 0 comments  

Labels: Hopetoun House

Last week we made our first visit to Hopetoun House in South Queensferry. We helped Peter and Fiona, the rangers, to cut back rhododendrons that were starting to grow over the path, and then burned them in a very big fire. We were assisted by their buggy with a trailer, which meant we didn't have to drag the branches all the way over to the fire, but just pile them in the trailer and unload them at the other end.

When we arrived at the house, Peter told us about the history of the grounds. He added that the Hopetoun family don't live in the whole house any more, only in a small part of it. We asked which bit they live in so he told us it was from the steps up to the centre door as far as the south wing, on all 4 floors. Sounds like a big enough part of the house to me.

During the two days we spent at Hopetoun we saw a variety of wildlife, including sika deer in the field next door and buzzards flying overhead both lunch times. We also heard a tawny owl, but couldn't make out what it was doing awake in the middle of the day.

On Thursday we went out to Maiden's Cleuch on the Pentlands doing some maintainance on their drains. The day was wet and windy, but we had a small amount of shelter behind the trees and were luckily not far from the van so could shelter in it for lunch. We cleared the mud and grass that had overgrown into the drains to prevent the paths from being washed away this winter. We finished our work just in time. As we were leaving the rain came to give us a good send off.

Posted by Gemma at 15:03 0 comments  

Labels: Hopetoun House, Pentlands