Five volunteers turned me up in the main car park at Styal Country Park / Quarry Bank Mill, and spent the day working in and around a small quarry, situated in the slope between the car park and the mill. We have done some work here before clearing assorted debris, small shrubs and Rhodi. Today there were various tasks, clearing ivy from the stump and the bottom 6 feet of tree to its left in the first picture. Removing selected small holly trees, clearing some of the felled timber (and converting the smaller bits into usable firewood for a domestic grate), and installing a three wire fence along the top of the face.
The fencing was made more "interesting" as the plan was to retain as much of the holly undergrowth around it as possible. The holly screens the top of the quarry and naturally keeps people out of harms way, but did complicate the task a little. A safety barrier was placed along the highest section of edge before we started work, along with high vis tape to help us keep track of where we were working.Manoeuvring a large coil of wire through the bushes while keeping track of exactly
where the edge was took a while but was managed safely. The risks were actually well controlled as the fence was a couple of feet back fro the edge and this quarry apears to be quite stable - I guess due to the shelter from the trees preventing frost damage. The other trick we found was to tie spare jumpers round some of the holly bushes to keep them out of the way!The third photograph is view along the fence, looking from the left hand edge of the 2nd photo towards the right hand edge of the first. At this point the quarry face is merging into a steep holly covered bank.
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