Following completion of ‘The Masonry wall and the Dry-stone wall’ project, our volunteer builders, Bob, Mark and Chris made a start on the repair and reconstruction of the bottom perimeter wall, to be known henceforth as ‘The Great Wall of Chapel Walk’. This perimeter wall runs alongside a public footpath named Chapel Walk. The first, and higher section of wall was mostly in good repair, but a layer of stones and a few rounded toppers were missing. This was Bob’s first repair task (Task 1).
The rest of the wall was significantly collapsed and buried beneath soil, grass, weeds and litter. At an approximate length of 40m, this was going to be a challenge! Our volunteers started work to uncover the fallen wall stones, while Bob and his team located and secured the foundation stones. They set an initial goal to reach the lamppost two-thirds of the way down (Task 2).
The fallen stones and debris were completely covering the pathway within the cemetery, which we understand to have originally been used as the entry to the Chapel’s School. At the bottom end was the gate, completely obscured and rusted. The last stretch of wall from the lamppost to the gatepost was to be the next target (Task 3). Beyond the gate is now private property and therefore the gate must remain closed to prevent public access.
At the top end of the pathway, it turns a corner and slopes up into the cemetery. The walls at either side of the slope were also in need of rebuilding (Task4). We were very grateful to Graham Swain for his offer to make some toppers to match the existing ones – a big THANK YOU.
Hungry for more work(?), Bob and his team then offered to build a retaining wall at the bottom of the embankment to stop any soil erosion spilling onto the newly exposed pathway (Task 5). With an abundance of leftover stones, many were upended and placed as toppers for this wall.
All that remained was to tidy up the gate area (Task 6). Volunteer Sue gave the rusty gates a new coat of paint (thanks to a grant from Bradford Council), and Bob finished the gatepost toppers and built a retaining wall under the gates to prevent soil washing into the private property beyond. A special mention goes to volunteer Paul, for his massive efforts in removing stone, broken glass and rubbish in order to level the pathway, in readiness for laying grass-seed in the Spring of 2026.