Reconstruction begins on 300-foot wall in Weston

The original 300-footlong wall, above, below the church on Lawrence Hill Road in Weston is being replaced. Old stone wall photos by Cynthia Prairie. Click a photo to launch the gallery.

By Mallory Hopkins
© 2015-Telegraph Publishing LLC

Construction has begun on a 300-footlong replacement wall on Lawrence Hill Road in Weston. The original wall has stood below the Community Church since the 1800s, when it was built using rocks found in fields and rivers.

But the wall has become unstable, with stones falling into the road and forcing the town to place concrete barriers along side it.

The concrete barriers were placed to prevent stone from falling into the road.

In early March, the Weston Select Board awarded the contract to replace the wall to Gurney Brothers of Springfield, which proposed last October to replace it for $359,000, using interlocking flat (guillotined) rocks from Bingham Masonry of Perkinsville and a design by Southern Vermont Engineering Associates of Brattleboro.

The proposal had the project starting in early April and finishing by July 4. But because of the harsh winter weather, the project got under way later in April.  And, Gurney Brothers now is predicting, the good weather has meant that the wall could be finished by the end of June.

A deep footer is added to the new stone wall for stability. All construction photos by Cheryl Barker, Weston Town Hall.

Daniels Construction is repaving the bridge over the West River on Lawrence Hill Road, but Gurney Brothers found broken expansion joints on the bridge that have to be repaired before repaving can begin.

To do so, Weston Select Board administrative assistant Cheryl Barker said, the town will have to close Lawrence Hill from the bridge to Landgrove Road for about eight hours during the day at the end of this week, except for emergency vehicles. The Select Board is attempting to contact the owners of the 15 homes that will be affected, Barker said.  She added that the joint repair will cost around $1,800 and the bridge repaving around $44,000.

The bridge road bed is also slated for repaving.

During the closure, residents northwest of the construction can take Route 100 to Greendale to a sharp left onto Lawrence Hill, past Kinhaven.

In a separate construction project, the town is also having the handicapped parking space at Town Hall widened to meet ADA standards, a project that will be undertaken by Springfield Paving at a cost of about $1,800, said Barker, adding that town crews have already done most of the work to extend the space into the Town Hall lawn.

Cynthia Prairie contributed to this article.