Ragwort pulling at Hare Hill on Sunday 16th August 2026

Today's planned workday at Hayfield was cancelled by ranger Chris due to the extreme fire risk and the need to allow for fire patrols and ranger response if required so instead five of us met ranger Issy at Hare Hill for a day of ragwort destruction.  Thanks Issy for providing us with a work task at short notice!  We hadn’t worked at Hare Hill since September 2018 because it is a garden property, not landscape where we normally work.

The estate includes farmland and the field we worked in is currently not useable for grazing because ragwort is poisonous to animals.  A corporate group had already done some work but there was still more than enough to keep us occupied for the day.

We used forks designed specifically to dig out the ragwort but it was still tiring as it was another hot day and the ground was so hard.  David managed to burst into life again after a supply of stem ginger cake.

We didn’t manage to clear the whole field but we did our bit to make the field useable for grazing.

Jean

Scything and raking at Hardcastle Crags on Sunday 2nd August 2026

Five of us from MNTV met up with five volunteers from the West Yorkshire National Trust Volunteer group and Hardcastle Crags Rangers Alice and Lily with high hopes that the 12 of us would make a big impact on today's tasks.

We loaded the Rangers' vehicle with the tools we'd brought with us and our rucksacks and walked from the Midgehole upper car park to a small area of grassland called Rom's Folly, which was on the left of the path as we walked towards Gibson Mill.

We quickly realised that most of Rom's Folly was a steep slope with a flatter area towards the bottom, which was nearer to the river.  There were lots of flies and midgey things about so we liberally applied our anti-mosquito spray to avoid getting bitten.

There were various tasks that needed doing today.  The whole area needed scything to get rid of the overgrown vegetation, but to ensure the land remained nutrient deficient we then had to rake the cut grasses and carry them to the side of the area and throw them over the wall.  After a demonstration of how to use a scythe by Ranger Alice, and the advice to 'walk' the area first to ensure no sleeping hedgehogs were hiding, Kate, James and David went down to the flatter area to work.

The rest of us stayed at the top of Rom's Folly, on the steep slope.  Some started removing the fern either by pulling up the smaller plants or slashing them or scything them or by using secateurs.  Again, we piled up anything that was cut down so it could be gathered together and thrown over the stone walls, so it wouldn't rot down in Rom's Folly and fertilise the land.

The third task was to gently remove the seed heads of the flowering Himalayan balsam that were on the steepest area, near the path.  We don't usually tackle balsam in this way.  Usually, earlier in the season we would pull the whole plant and its roots out of the ground, and snap the roots from the stem so it can't re-root and throw it to the floor to die.  However, the balsam today was so ripe that the seed pods were on the verge of bursting to spread seeds over a large area, for plants to grow next year.  If we had tried to pull the plants out as usual, the action would have spread the seeds at the same time, which we didn't want to do, so a gentler approach of using secateurs to cut the flowers and seeds off and disposing of them in a black bin bag was the best way of dealing with them.

I have to confess, the tasks were quite hard work, particularly because we were also on a slope in the full sun, but we kept ourselves hydrated, took breaks when needed, ate lots of cake at mid-morning break, and home-made flapjack (courtesy of the West Yorkshire group) at lunchtime.

It was, all in all, a great day, we got loads done, met some lovely fellow-volunteers, and chatted to members of the public that were walking past and curious about what we were doing.

Sue B

Summer at Calke Abbey - 24th - 26th July

 Planning an MNTV weekend takes time, energy and patience and this years Summer at Calke Abbey was no different. The weekend was booked in by March and with our 40th Anniversary Party on the horizon I wanted to get that out of the way before concentrating on Calke Abbey. 40th out of the way and Jenny and I got our heads together to formulate a plan….its now Thursday 23rd July and you find me on a train bound for Manchester, with my cool bag, filled with goodies, by my feet as due to a last minute cancellation by Jenny, I'm leading this weekend solo…with, I'm hoping, help from the rest of the group. With everything, I hope, under control, I'm going to kick back and enjoy the English scenery and I'll come back to you later.

Friday has arrived and after a quick trip to Quarry Bank Mill for a look in the garden I was picked up by Andy and Clare. There was quite a bit of luggage to go with me as some of the provisions were at Jennys. We managed to squeeze it all in and headed for Uttoxeter to pick up the shopping, I did think I might have to call on reinforcements to pick Me or some of the shopping up but Andy managed to fill every space including Mine and Clares footwells with food….it’s only 40 mins down the road. Upon arrival we found Sarah and Neil already there and enjoying the sunshine. We unpacked the food and my luggage from Andy’s car which left them to go to their accommodation in Ticknall and Me to sort out where the food went. Prior to the weekend it had been decided we would go to the local watering hole for our tea but with Jack and Tim not arriving til 7pmish it was decided we would get take away Pizza. Sarah found a lovely little pizzeria in Ashby-de-la-Zouch that did takeaway so she and I put in the order and headed over to pick it up. Whilst we were away Jack and Tim arrived after travelling together from Manchester along with Andy and Clare who had walked from their cottage in Ticknall. That evening we dined on Pizza and Salad on the outdoor furniture provided. After swapping stories and discussing the arrangements for the weekend we headed to bed.

Dinner outside - J Lyons

 

Saturday has arrived and the sunshine is still with us. We were up and breakfasted by 9.30 ready for a pick up by the Rangers, however it was at this stage we discovered that the fridge wasn’t working, the light was on but no cold air was in it, so we loaded up a bag of food that we thought would be best in the fridge and Sarah and Andy drove to Ticknell to put the food in Andy’s fridge and then onto the worksite. Ranger Emily drove the rest of us to the worksite in Calkes Minibus and Ranger Alice drove in the pickup behind us. They had been told by Vicky that we could be left to our own devices — a huge compliment from Vicky, Thank You! Sarah and Andy joined us at this point. The task was Ragwort pulling, there was a fairly large area to clear. We walked the first field and didn’t find any there so we carried on to the other areas and started pulling them out with some difficulty. The ground was very hard and pulling it out was not as easy as I thought it would be and I couldn’t get my head around the equipment we’d been provided with. At coffee time we went back to the minibus that Emily and Alice had left us with and got our bags out. We enjoyed Jenny’s Chocolate Brownies, Lemon Drizzle Cake and Ally’s Carrot Cake, I wouldn’t like to say whose won!

Our Worksite - A Hardy

With the bus and bags so far from where we were working we decided to take them with us, closer to where we were working. The sun beat down all day and when it came to lunch time we found a big tree that provided shade to sit under. Neil decided to stay where he was as he had found a tree to sit under on the other side of the field. We managed to get quite a bit cleared and the sun was still beating down. We finished our day at 3pm and with the food needed for that nights meal not at Base Sarah drove Andy and Clare home to pick up the food and the rest of us got a lift in the minibus. Upon arrival back at Base we went in different directions, Tim went for a walk around the Estate, Sarah, Jack, Niel and Myself went to our respective beds and had a rest from the sun and also showered. I took Myself off downstairs to start the preparations for dinner before long I was joined by others, most of whom sat outside partaking in some libation. We dined on Tomato Macaroni Cheeses with Garlic Bread and Salad finished off with Chocolate Cheesecake, Pomegranate and Raspberry Cheesecake with Berries and Cream. After dinner we were back outside to enjoy the last of the sunshine before heading for bed.

The Stables - T Leadbetter

Calke Church - T Leadbetter

The Hall with yellowing grass due to the hot weather - T Leadbetter

Sunday dawned cooler but bright with the possible chance of some rain. We breakfasted on cereal and bacon butties. We were picked up by the Rangers and again taken to the worksite….the same one as yesterday. However with the workday due to finish at 1pm we decided to concentrate on a smaller area of ragwort so that we could clear an area rather than leaving Ragwort still standing in many areas. We toiled away, chatting to each other as we went. Despite the light shower of rain we had made good progress by cake time and by 12.15 we had cleared the area Result!

Our day 2 worksite - S Hopes

We all then moved our bags to the minibus and took our ragwort forks into a feild close by that we had been asked to clear, as we waded through the long grass I was sceptical that there were any ragwort in this field, as it happened we found about 10 plants so it was another excellent result. At 1pm Rangers Emily and Alice came to pick us up and we were able to tell them that we had cleared two distinct areas. They were very pleased with our work. Upon arrival back at the basecamp we packed up our sleeping bags, divvied out the leftover food, changed out of our sweaty clothes, had lunch and headed for home. It was a great weekend and we missed you all. I hope to see more of you at our Winter in Wales Weekend on 13th - 15th November.

Balsam bashing at Dunham Massey on Sunday 26th July 2026

There is nothing more to be said about balsam bashing that has not been said over the last few weeks, as this is one of our regular summer jobs.  What I can say is that we had a very productive and enjoyable day with our Merseyside colleagues.

It was a day that wasn't due to take place as it was our weekend away at Calke Abbey but due to crossed wires it took place and we managed to muster up a few volunteers, which slowly reduced in numbers due to the forecast of rain.  In fact the rangers were surprised and pleased at the joint effort as we not only cleared our allocated target area for today but two others as well.

Great day all round, so thanks everyone.

Christine

Balsam bashing at Lyme Park on Sunday 19th July 2026

It started as a slightly cooler day today, a welcome change from the heat of the last few weeks.  Most of us met Ranger Jason in the main car park before getting a lift in the Lyme Park shuttle bus back to the entrance kiosk where we met Shirley and walked as a group through the gate, up Red Lane, and into the field where we’ve been Himalayan balsam bashing previously.

Today we had Emily joining us for the first time, and also Niamh, who’d only been out with us once before.  After putting our bags in the shade under some trees, Jason gave us a safety talk before we started destroying the balsam by pulling it up and snapping the roots off so it couldn’t regrow.

We were all doing really well at making our piles of discarded balsam and we had two of the Lyme Park Youth volunteers join us too, so we were getting a lot done before we stopped for a mid-morning refreshment break with cake.

Afterwards we continued with our task, before stopping a couple of hours later for lunch and a chat.

During the afternoon it started getting warmer.  Most of us had hats to wear and some of us decided to work in the shade under the trees.

There was a huge amount of balsam on the other side of a wire fence which I thought I could climb over and join David in destroying.  However I soon discovered it was harder than it looked to get into that area and, once I was finally over the fence, I found myself sitting precariously on the pile of balsam that David had pulled up and stacked against the fence.  For a while, I was laughing too much to be able to shift my body weight enough to get off it! - but fortunately I managed it in the end.

We all had a great time - we achieved a lot, had a good chat and really enjoyed being outdoors, admiring the butterflies, grasshoppers, bees, dragonflies, damselflies and other insects, on such a wonderful day.

Sadly there was too much balsam to destroy it all today, but hopefully we’ll be back soon to continue our quest.

Sue B

Balsam bashing at Dunham Massey on Sunday 5th July 2026

Replacing a fence at Formby on Sunday 28th June 2026

Eight of us met ranger Bree and five members of the Merseyside group at 10 o’clock on a warm and breezy morning.  After Gaynor sampled the ice cream from the kiosk already in full swing, we had a 10 mins walk to the work site, the play area near St Luke’s church.

The job was to dismantle the existing stock fencing and replace it with a more ecofriendly dead hedge.  The wood was rotten in places but the fence was overgrown with vegetation and still pretty sturdy.

All the material used to make the dead hedge was locally ‘produced’ by cutting down sycamore saplings growing close by.  The wonky stakes were a bit difficult to hammer into the ground but they give a real rustic feel suitable for a woodland.

Then the cut branches were piled up between the stakes with some of the outside ones woven round them to make it more stable.

We had an enjoyable day working with Merseyside.  We used a full range of tools - loppers, bowsaws, fencing pliers, wire cutters, hand axes, small hammers and big ones - so thank you to the National Trust for a tool refresher training day.

Jean