New Deck for the Ruston Bench
Photos: 28 April - 6 June 2017
Text: 30 September 2022
After its arrival in February 2015 the Ruston Bench was moved, in May that year, from the lawn beside the house to its permanent position overlooking the part of the lake we call "The Pool". Within the year it was realised that it was slowly sinking into the peat there, in spite of the large slices of oak we had to support its legs. We clearly needed a similar platform to that on which the Tree House stands.
It took a further year before we could get Roger back with the request that not only was he to build a deck for the bench, he would also make a new balustrade to replace the one that had necessarily been destroyed when he had re-decked the bridge before our wedding.
Our first photo, taken on 28 April, shows a couple of planks he'd used to assist measuring up that deck that we had request he build for us. We then had to wait for the timber to be delivered.
By 24 May the timber had been delivered and a couple of days construction had been done on the under-frame. The bench itself had been lifted up the bank, but Roger had no choice but to work around the shelter that we had commissioned from the Green Team. It was built to protect the bench from falling sap that we had discovered the birch trees dropped on it during the spring after we had moved it from the lawn by the house. The sap leaves a horrible dark sticky mess that is difficult to clean away.
Roger had prefabricated the balustrade panels in his workshop, but when they arrived on site it was realised there had been a slight miscalculation. Roger had not realised that the originals came in slightly different sizes. Luckily, the error was not serious. While the balustrade did not cover the full length of the bridge that didn't matter too much as the ends ran well over the lake banks where a barrier is not needed.
Meanwhile, for the last two years, a couple of the old sections of balustrade had been used to delineate part of the path around the island with the rest helping to retain the embankment around the old reed bed.
It seems no photos were taken once Roger had completed his work and the first taken was on the following Saturday, while taking a barbecue on the Tree House. During construction we had realised that the deck was not just big enough to site a large BBQ, as had been the original idea, but could easily take some more relaxing seating, and that's what you see here.
Nor were there photos taken of the newly installed balustrade and this photo, taken on 11 September while we were looking after a friend's dog, shows how the solar lights had had their uprights cut down and were now mounted on the neatly capped balustrade support posts.
