Hard Porous Pitch Maintenance: 11. Localised Compaction

Areas that were prone to heavier wear would become more compacted, along with increased material displacement and the forming of hollows.

The surrounding area would need to be raked to return excess displaced material back into a hollow, which was hand forked, then wire raked and then any additional top-dressing applied and carefully worked into the fork holes using a lute. This would then be firmed by either heeling in or by the use of a pedestrian roller – all in a similar way to preparing a soil surface in anticipation of turfing.

A border fork would have been used to make the holes, to a depth of about 65mm – 75mm so as to penetrate through the blinding layer into the surface of the stone base layer. Particular care would have been taken to ensure the work produced a straight in and out result, without leaning back on the fork, or ‘wiggling around’ of the fork to create large holes, otherwise the blinding layer and hard porous layer could become mixed. This would reduce the consistency of the hard porous surface layer and affect play as well as the moisture retention and firming capability.