The Khyber Pass

This week I attempted, with some success, the Old Sodbury Khyber Pass. When we first built the house, the foundation spoil was dumped round the perimeter of what would become the garden and at the time was just a field. 

We ended up with a 5 foot wall of clay, which we thought we'd leave to settle for a few years. The few years became 10 and, while it did indeed settle, more spoil from various other projects was added to it and it remained a jungle of weeds, tussocks and hummocks that were impenetrable to a hand mower, let alone the ride-on-mower.

This year it looked like it was feasible to at least attempt at forging a path through it and risking bending of mower blades on bits of rubble before the weeds once more took control.

While not being fully able to clear the high plateau of all its vegetation, a good start was made. Some judicious tamping of some tumps and I should be able to clear it all within a week and then start levelling it further with every mowing. This should result in a ha-ha of sorts.

Having the spoil removed while building the house would have been sensible, but we were looking at a cost of around £5k to achieve that, which was the price of a couple of weeks of labour by Colin and his crew.