Les Mable's raised beds with bench seats from new railway sleepers

I thought you might like to see the pictures of my raised bed project with new railway sleepers.  I bought a nice fibreglass pond going cheap, and therefore needed to dig out about 4 cubic metres of soil from the garden.  At the same time, my wife wanted a large raised bed for plants, and so this was designed to accommodate the soil removed for the pond.  To make life interesting (i.e. more complicated!) the design also incorporates two bench seats about 1 metre wide.  Overall length of the bed is 6.4 metres, the short length is 2.5 metres, and the internal width is 0.8 metres.  The height is about 0.75 metres.  I have to admit to buying the railway sleepers elsewhere, partly on the basis of my location, but I was very much inspired by some of the other projects on your website so I am very happy to let you have the images.  The vertical sides of the bed are being lined in the coming days and then I can get the pond dug.


The project used:
10 fence posts, 75mm x 75mm x 1.8m (halved and used to form corners and vertical supports),
20 railway sleepers 95mm x 190mm x 1.8m,
22 railway sleepers 95mm x 190mm x 2.4m,
Over 300 railway sleeper screws, most of which are hidden from sight,
3 lengths of decking (2.4m) for the seats and arm-rests.

There are also two images that were captured from Google SketchUp - a pretty good 3D modelling tool for projects like this, and free for the basic version. Let me know if you need any other info.

Thanks again for the inspiration.

Les Mable
Godmanchester, near Huntingdon in Cambridgeshire.
 

RailwaySleepers.com Says..

Thank you for the comprehensive photos of your excellent railway sleeper project. Seeing it all progress from your initial computer programme design, (a great help in visualising the end picture) through your meticulous thoughtful construction and finally on to the impressive and unique finished article is particularly inspiring.