Katherine Lady Berkley School & Kier Contruction

Keir Construction approached us to help them with the ongoing renovations to Katherine Lady Berkley School in Gloucestershire. The school is one of the oldest in the country and is undergoing a full scale rebuild. Keir asked for our assistance in building a pair of double bay practice facilities and installing a brand-new match pitch also.

With time of the essence as works had to be completed during the Easter holidays, Duncan Ross Land Drainage did a spectacular job with the installation completing it on schedule even accounting for some horrendous weather.

The location of the site presented a couple of issues, mainly that a large tree was situated particularly close to the bowlers’ run ups. After some adjustments were made by both Verde staff and Duncan Ross staff, we laid out the two practice facilities and works commenced on cutting out the site. Due to the levels on the site a degree of cutting in was required but as you can see from the photos the work looks amazing.

The school had settled on have batting and bowling ends with an increased bowlers run up area, so works commenced on building the bowling ends initially due to restrictions on access. Duncan and his lads worked down towards the batting ends, installing the sockets that would later take the 2 double bay cages at 18.30m long in line with ECB requirements.

They then set about installing the Cricket aggregates and fitting the Super Verde Wilton, Shockpads and Verdegrass 14. Due to the increasingly wet weather, they took their time to make sure the base was installed correctly. This was important considering the school had asked for the TEST MATCH system to be installed, so the base needed to be of the highest quality.

The next step was to erect the cage and install the netting which the school had asked to include Anti-Vermin skirts. With the roof and perimeter attached off site, it was a simple task to install the nets even if Duncan’s team had to battle the elements.

Finally, after a small delay the team headed out onto the field to install the new match pitch which consisted of a 30.00m Super Verde Wilton and Shockpad laid over a TEST MATCH System base  ready to be used by the school once the weather improved.

It would be remiss of us to not thank Duncan Ross Land Drainage for the great work they did down at Katherine Lady Berkley School. A task that seemed improbable at one point was completed on schedule in the most trying of weather and we think the results are excellent.

Look out for more case studies over the coming week on some of the other work we have completed so far in 2023.

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