The Punt Stations

So, another year, another May Ball. This time the theme was Moulin Rouge (I think), and although my wife was staying well clear my work the previous year had been noted, and I was asked nicely if I could contribute to the decorations again. My strengths had clearly been identified as large wooden things, as the request this year was for two canopies, broadly mimicking the elaborate Paris Subway entrances at such as at Abbesses. One was to sit over the stairway down to the punt shed, while the second would straddle the gap in the wall further round the college. In both cases they'd lead to the riverside where punts would shuttle people back and forth to the islands.

Abbesses Station
Steve Cadman under CC license

No construction photos this time I'm afraid, so I'll just throw in some photos from the night. In fact I don't really remember to many of the details of construction, except that it took a lot longer than I expected as I just made it up as I went along rather than trying to design anything at the start. In fact on reflection I probably could have saved myself quite a lot of time by spending a few hours on a decent drawing.


Both stations were assembled in my back garden, then dismantled more or less to the individual bits of wood and driven to the college (any larger and the pieces wouldn't have fitted in my car). I'll never forget the look on the decoration committee's faces when I unloaded what looked like a huge pile of scrap wood. An hour or so's work had them together again though, followed by a coat of paint and stretching some polythene sheet over the top of each one.


One of the key objectives was to keep them high enough to stop people from touching them - I didn't want any drunk students trying to hang from them. I don't remember the exact dimension but I think both were around 3m tall - the smaller one in the staircase was built in two sections, with the bottom section providing a false bottom step. The larger one had two legs which were clamped to the wall next to the river, then the main canopy which was bolted on top. It took three people to assemble the larger one.


Some photos from the night. From what I remember it rained a bit during the night, but I'd managed to get the polythene fairly taut and so no puddles formed on it.


All photos by Tom Cryer unless stated otherwise