*CANCELLED* Work on the Dahlia Walk at Biddulph on Sunday 27th October 2019

Sadly, the heavy rain on Friday night/Saturday day has washed out tomorrow's workday at Biddulph.  The gardens and flowerbeds are flooded.  Paul Walton (Ranger) phoned this morning to cancel it.  He was very apologetic and said how much he values our help and that he hopes to see us all again soon, but working in the gardens with the ground conditions as they are just isn't feasible.

Rhododendron bashing at Hayfield on Sunday 20th October 2019

Autumn has properly arrived! As six volunteers gathered in Hayfield, hats were donned, warm breath vaporised in the cool morning air, and there was an eagerness to get going rather than stand around for too long.

 

And when Autumn arrives, it’s a good time to go rhody bashing. There’s nothing like some vigorous sawing to keep the limbs warm in the colder months of the year. In times past we’d have also had a roaring fire to toast ourselves next to, but due to constraints on today’s worksite, we’d only be piling up the cut material, leaving it to slowly rot down, rather than burning it.

 

Today we were continuing the ongoing clearance of rhododendron from Park Hall woods. We’ve already cut down large swathes throughout the wood, and really opened up the understorey. Today we were focussing on clearing a patch which encircled the base of some large trees, especially one extremely big mature beech, so that ranger Mark can get in to properly survey the base of the trees and monitor their health.

 

Before: lots of rhody, and the base of the beech tree in the background is impossible to inspect.

We spread out along the line of rhody growing below the trees and gradually made a few large piles of cut material. Despite having a relatively small group we were able to make very visible progress. By the end of the day we had cleared another large area of the woods, and most importantly, Mark is now able to carry out his tree surveys!

After: much clearer, with the beech tree now accessible.



A clear understorey with piles of cut rhody that will rot down.

 

Footpath work at Styal on Sunday 13th October 2019

Eight of us worked at Styal today, putting in drainage on a section of the top footpath to Twinnies Bridge.  The worksite was about 200 metres down the path from its start at the far end of the overflow carpark.  This was the same stretch of path that we worked on on 8 September.  The path had begun to flood because of heavy rain since – the existing drains beneath the path were blocked and not coping with the water running off the fields above the path.

The main task was to build a stone culvert across the path to replace a blocked plastic drainpipe.  This involved digging out the drainpipe to a depth of one foot, edging the trench with concrete kerbstones and roofing the trench with paving slabs.

Neil and Andy H digging the trench

Vicky (Ranger), Tim and Neil fitting the concrete kerbstone walls

The finished culvert

We also unblocked a second drainpipe that ran under the path a few metres away from the culvert, replaced one of the wooden planks that edged the path, scraped wet mud off the path and spread wheelbarrowfuls of stones on muddy sections of the path.

By the end of the day we could see tangible results from our construction – the path was much drier than when we arrived and water was flowing freely through the culvert and unblocked drainpipe.

Team MNTV

Daniel

Strimming and clearing in walled garden at Gawthorpe Hall, Burnley 6th Oct 2019

Five of us (Christine, Sue, Andy H, Andy S and Tim) travelled to Burnley today to our first workday, we believe, in the grounds of Gawthorpe Hall. We met Nik, the Ranger, in the car park which is shared with Burnley Football Club (fortunately there wasn't a home match on) to discuss what we would be doing as the forecast was showing rain, on and off, all day.
We piled into Nik's Toyota Hilux pick-up and he drove us to the Ranger's workshop and Bothy, where we were offered a cup of tea while Nik told us a bit about Gawthorpe Hall. We warmed ourselves in front of the log-burner whilst sitting on proper wooden chairs with seat pads - true luxury!! Christine (so now 2 Christine's and 2 Andy's!), the other 'Gawthorpe and Stubbins Estates' Ranger, arrived to join us.

A great start to the day:-)

Mainly because of the expected poor weather, and the fact it was Open Heritage Day so the Hall and surrounding area were likely to be busy, we decided to continue the Gawthorpe volunteers work of strimming and raking up the native weeds in the walled garden behind the Bothy. Nik has found, by doing this, the weeds are more likely to return stronger next year, providing a great habitat for butterflies. The piles of weeds would be removed at a later date by the Gawthorpe volunteers.

Starting slashing and raking the weeds

After walking over the area to check no hedgehogs were hiding in the undergrowth which could get injured!, Nik started up his petrol strimmer whilst the rest of us either used slashers or rakes to gather the weeds into large piles. It was hot work so we were regularly taking off our coats and fleeces when we got warm, only to put them on again when the rain came!

End of the day by one of the many 'piles' of weeds we created

Rangers Nik and Christine were very pleased with what we'd achieved by the end of the day and, as we piled back into Niks Hilux (we could only all get in because MNTV's Christine offered to ride in the back - literally!!), we returned to the car park to collect our cars.
We had a brilliant day - not only a new venue but Nik and Christine made us feel so welcome that we will definitely be back next year!!

MNTV Christine ready for the trip back to the car park!