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Straw bale walls going up at Castle Hill School

The new straw bale classroom at Castle Hill School is progressing well!

Since the pupils broke up for the summer holidays, building on-site has been continuing at a fantastic pace, with most of the straw bale walls now in place.

Straw bale walls

We’ve had two different site managers looking after the build. Craig Taylor has managed the site up until the wall-raising, taking care of all the preliminary work, foundation-laying, service installation and much more.

Site manager Craig Taylor

Laying foundations

Now the walls are going up, our straw bale expert Emma Appleton has stepped in to manage this part of the build.

Straw manager Emma Appleton

Straw bale wall raising

Straw bales, twine and baling needles

We’ve been incredibly lucky with the weather – as you can imagine, naked straw and rain don’t mix. But although the walls have been covered with tarpaulins each night in case of rain, thanks to the hot, sunny spell we’ve been enjoying recently everything has stayed nice and dry. That said, our building team have had deliveries of rehydration salts and ice lollies to keep them going in the heat…

Thirsty work…!

Jamie gets an unofficial visit!

We’re hoping that the straw bale walls will be completed this week.

At this point we’ll be ready to add the ‘wall plate’, which helps to compress the bales and will provide a sturdy platform for the roof. Then it’s more carpentry as the timber-framed roof goes up, and we prepare for rendering and plastering the external and internal walls.

Emma with the pre-built wall plate

Straw bale walls going up at Castle Hill School