Hiccups! on Life's Highway through Frampton

Frampton Index

Somebody soon sorted this out in Church Lane

I found this 'abandoned' tractor at Magiston on the road to

Sydling St Nicholas

Dorchester Road & Southover Lane

It all looks peaceful enough until someone needs to park and offload

There's inevitably a line of traffic waiting while this ditch clearing effort goes on by Sandways Bridge on the road to Southover.

For another drain clearance click on the photograph

no traffic was delayed during this exercise in 2006 but there was much head scratching and consultation as the branch was definitely winning while I watched.  Pushing, pulling and heavy 'artillery' eventually won the day

Frampton does seem to have its fair share of visitations from the Water Authorities for one reason or another.  These photographs were taken in April 2008 after a water main from Frampton to Southover burst and had to be replaced.  Offloading the polythene pipe was interesting enough but drilling under the Frome and putting in a new pipeline was even better.

The small blue pipe had been sort of  'enhancing' Sandways Bridge for quite some time so that Southover could have a temporary water supply.

Water Authorities

To replace the main pipeline involved some heavy and expensive machinery.  The drilling rig was impressive and with a large lorry in front and a small digger at the rear it was quite a line up.

I particularly liked the advertisment on the lorry door.  It says exactly what they are about without a word needed.

Many thanks to Peter Cox for alerting me to the drilling rig

If you look carefully at the top right corner of the centre photo bottom row you can see the angle of the pipe to get it under the river bed.  The man in the field opposite is watching a machine which tells him where the end of the drill has got to.  Then the digger makes another hole for the drill to break out into

Water Board

Environment Agency

Fordson Tractor

Peacock Tree

BT

A detachment were testing water quality and the sediment on the river bed, that's the equipment the ducks are circling, pushed well down into the gravels.  Unfortunately, when it came to removing the material for testing there was some difficulty as a largish flint had become wedged in the pipe.  There was much pushing, shaking and tapping on the pipe before they managed to clear the blockage and complete their task

Environment Agency 2004

These photos were taken in Church Lane in  April 2008 after telephone wires came down as a post broke.  Normally they would use the big drill on the lorry but they were worried that it might bog down in the field as the gateway is at the top and the post needed to go right at the bottom.  They had brought a small digger to make the hole for the post instead.  It struggled a bit because of the thick hedge and also because of the flints but they eventually drilled the hole deep enough.  They took a great deal of care to get the right depth

2006

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1997 Longlands

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by DS