TBTS News 2006

Here you will find news from the 2006 Traditional Boundaries, Traditional Skills Project. If you want to know more about the background to our project, click here.

In November 2005 we recruited 10 trainees, 5 based in Rothbury and 5 in Haltwhistle. The course was hugely over subscribed - we had 40 applicants for 2005/6, eventually becoming a shortlist of 20 candidates which became 10 successful trainee candidates.Our trainees come from far and wide ranging from Berwick in the north, Chopwell in the south, South Shields in the East and Haltwhistle in the West. Training started in December 2005.

Our 2005/06 Trainees at Walltown near Greenhead

All 10 of our TBTS trainees passed their Initial DSWA test in May 2006. This involved taking down and rebuilding 2.5 metres of dry stone wall in seven hours (this means moving five tonnes of stone!). Our trainees are now honing their skills for the final, more difficulty intermediate test in mid September. After the Intermediate test we will be looking in detail at the non walling training to make sure our trainees have had exposure to the right balance of skills.

60% of the skills we are giving to our trainees is in dry stone walling which is examined by the Dry Stone Walling Association. The exam qualification is awarded by LANTRA the Land Skills Council. The other 40% of the time is spent on Hedging, Fencing, Pitching, the construction of footpaths on sloping ground and footpath construction. In addition trainees receive business and IT training.

Community Events and Projects Year 1

By the end October project teams had displayed their skills at 12 public events including dry stone walling 'taster days' for the general public.

At Greenhaugh in the North Tyne we completed a feature wall incorporating a drainage spillway as a local community project. Our Rothbury team built a mini wall for Glanton Childrens Day in June.

Children's Wall at Glanton Show built by the Rothbury Team

We attended 10 local agricultural shows in 2006 these range from the County Show at Corbridge in the South to Glanton in North.

Photo Updates 2005

Two of our trainees repairing a farm wall in the South Tyne area. They're just in the process of putting the first row of 'through' stones on the wall. These are the stones that help tie the wall together and generally the style in the area is for these stones to stick out beyond the edge of the wall.

One of the skills we are passing on to our trainees is fencing. Here our trainees are putting in a gate post.

Hedge laying is another countryside skill our trainees will be trained in. This photo was taken at Greenhaugh School in the North Tyne where our trainees were being shown the skills of hedge laying by a local.

It's not all glitz and glamour! Gordon Hall, a trainee from our 2005/06 programme working in cold conditions.