Levine Building – Newsletter No. 1

 

This newsletter was written by our Interim Domestic Bursar Linda Irving-Bell who was on site to  cover the event as it happened. Great Journalism Linda and from all of us here in the Garden Department, Thank You so much.

 

 

After many years of planning, work relating to one Trinity’s most ambitious and exciting

building projects in the history of the College has begun. The Levine Building will provide the

College with an auditorium, purpose‐built teaching rooms, a community space and a new

function room, as well as enhanced wheelchair access to the existing college library, new

study space, 46 study bedrooms and a central administrative hub.

However, before construction can begin, the site must be prepared. Part of the preparations

of the site will involve demolishing the Cumberbatch building at the beginning of the Long

Vacation 2019. One part of the preparation could not wait until then, and that is the

removal of some of the trees in the Wilderness as this must be done prior to the beginning

of the bird nesting season. Our own Gardens team undertook the first part of the clearance

work to create an area for the tree felling machinery to be brought in. This must be very

difficult for the gardening team, and for our Head Gardener, Paul Lawrence in particular, as

he has planted and nurtured trees and plants in the Wilderness for 24 years. Despite their

personal sadness, he and his team have remained very positive in working on the project.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Trinity College Gardening Team

L to R: Bob Dunn, Joshua Walker, Aaron Drewett and Head Gardener Paul Lawrence

 

 

 

Anyone walking in the Wilderness before it was roped off might have noticed that some of

the trees have spots on them. These are all trees that are shown on the site plan as needing

to be removed.

 

 

 

 

 

The tree Removal Plan

Trees marked with two spots will be soft felled Trees marked with one spot will be straight‐felled

 

 

 

 

 

 

Trees marked with two spots will be soft felled

 

 

Trees marked with one spot will be straight‐felled

 

 

 

 

 

If a tree has features such as woodpeckers holes, cracks, splits, cavities and rot holes, then

the tree will be ‘soft‐felled’. This procedure is always carried out in suitable weather

conditions at an appropriate time of year and involves removing the top branches first and

working down the tree removing it in sections. Each section would then be laid on the

ground with holes and cracks facing upward for as long as possible as this gives any wildlife

a chance to vacate the tree. Cutting through cavities would be avoided. The ecologist did

not know if any of our trees actually had any wildlife in any holes, but the markings on the

trees identified those trees that had potential habitats for wildlife as below:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Before the main tree felling work took place, the Ecologist arrived on site and examined all

of the identified features using an endoscope. None of the features had any signs of wildlife,

so all of the trees could be straight felled.

Paul made a photographic record of the trees that were to be removed. Here are some of

the College favourites.

 

 

 

 

 

The 120 year old oak and the circular bench

 

 

The old burred Mulberry that supplied fruit for many a pie

 

The Brewer Spruce

 

 

One of the Limes

 

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The Sycamore

 

 

Pink Horse Chestnut

 

 

A Local Oxford Company, Arborvitae were employed to remove the trees. The first thing the

company did was to rope off the site, which then became their responsibility in every

respect. A ‘toolbox talk’ was then carried out to ensure that the men working on the site

know where everything is, e.g. welfare facilities, first aid kits and site office. All safety

procedures were re‐iterated, even though all the crew were well versed in every aspect of

safety. This is dangerous work, and no‐one can afford any mistake. On the first day, the

team worked with chainsaws, a wood chipper and a grabber. Part of the income for the

company comes from reselling the wood chip for garden use.

The first trees to be removed were those that were in a location or were of a suitable size to

enable them to be felled by cutting low on the trunk with a chainsaw.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

                                                                           

One of the trees being felled by a single chainsaw cut.

  To aid the tree falling in the correct location it was pulled on a rope.

 

 

As the trees came down they were cut into manageable portions to enable them to be

taken across to the chipper using the grabber below

 

 

 

The grabber was used to take the felled branches over to the chipping machine

 

 

The £650,000 chipper is the largest in Europe!

 

 

The Chipping Machine

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1k456YN_gkUJFTIwdmZZ2ZVyuJvkCt6wv/view

Click the link above to see the chipper in action with a 3‐ton tree trunk

 

 

 

 

Paul, our Head Gardener has never seen a chipping machine as powerful and with the

capabilities of this one, so you can guess what happened next!

 

 

 

 

Who is in the cab?

 

He just couldn't resist

 

 

 

Some of the tree felling was more complicated and entailed a tree surgeon climbing the tree

wearing a safety harness to cut large sections from the tree, and lifting those sections from

 

the tree with a crane. The most difficult of the trees felled this way was the horse chestnut

that leaned in the direction of the Bodleian, close to the historic dividing wall. The pictures

below tell the story:

 

 

 

 

The horse chestnut leaning over the historic listed wall next to the Bodleian

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The removal of the horse‐chestnut tree leaning across the wall towards the Bodleian

 

 

 

 

The felled trees were gradually removed from the Wilderness

 

Gallery of Tree Stumps

 

 

 

 

Horse Chestnut

 

Cedar

 

 Cypress 

 

Yew

 

Lime

 

Sycamore

 

Yew

 

Yew

 

Yew

 

Medlar

 

Mulberry

 

Hawthorn

 

Oak

 

Brewer Spruce

 

Sycamore

 

Weeping Beech

 

Pink Horse Chestnut

 

 

Although most of the wood was chipped as part of the contract with Arborvitae, Paul

selected some pieces that will be given to local woodturners to make items such as bowls or

spoons. It is hoped that in time these will be displayed in the College. Trinity has an amateur

woodturner, David Thomas‐Comiskey in our Workshop. David is planning to make a bowl for

College from his chosen piece of wood, a large piece of lime.

 

 

 

 

 

 

David Thomas‐Comiskey with his limewood

 

 

 

Paul has kept the trunks of trees that are suitable to cut into planks, and these will be cut,

then kept for three years before they can be used. Some are likely to be used in the new

building, but Paul will keep some of the planks to return them back to the Wilderness in due

course as benches for members of the College and visitors to enjoy.

 

 

 

The retained tree trunks which will be cut into planks.

 

After three very busy days, it was time for the final clean up around the Wilderness.

 

 

 

 

Our College Gardeners, Still Smiling whilst they carry out the final clean‐up

 

 

This newsletter is written with particular thanks to Paul Lawrence for his input including

some superb photographs.

 

 What Next

During the Easter Vacation 2019, a large temporary building will be installed on the north

lawn. This will provide facilities to replace The Danson Room and Library space that will be

lost when the Cumberbatch Building is demolished during summer 2019. It will also provide

some teaching space. Once the Levine Building is complete, the internal layout of the

temporary building will be modified to provide a kitchen and dining room whilst the College  kitchens are being refurbished.