As the surrounding ground was fairly uneven - certainly far to bumpy to consider laying sandstone on it as it was - we needed to create an level base to work on.

The obvious choice of using a machint to level the surround was considered too risky given the number of water, gas, phone and electricity conduits in the vicinity.

It was also fairly obvious that, in some places, the surface needed raising to achieve a useful level in relation to the doorsteps.

So we elcted to pour a concrete edge by hand which would provide a perimeter inside which we could fill and level a suitable base.

We wanted to avoid a complex and costly formwork construction but wished to achieve something complimentary to the environment.

The temple has few curved lines and the environment few straight ones, so a curved perimeter seemed the best design.

However pouring freestyle curves in not such a straightforward task and we wanted to avoid complicated and costly formwork construction.

We used strips of 6mm hardwood bracing plywood for the formwork.

We used high-tensile barbed wire - for its escellent strength and rust-resistant properties - as reinforcing. We had removed a fair amount from old fences on the new portion of the land and it seemed sensible to recycle them.

The formwork was initially positioned using tent pegs, 100mm-wide blocks of a very firm foam and small F-clamps.

As the concrete was shovelled in the blocks of foam were removed, the barbed wire positioned roughly in the centre of the wet concrete and the clamps tightened to determine the width of the edge.

Once the concrete had started to go off, we made a series of dents with a trowel to create a key for the mortar which would support the sandstone forming the outside edge of the pathway.

The plywood wouldn't conform to some of the tighter bends without cracking and we switched to plastic lawn-edging strips which worked well.

Eventually the perimeter became complete and we had a boundary running right around the temple.