Gulley blocking on Kinder: Sunday 26th Aug '12

Seven of us joined with 3 of the High Peak Rangers to travel to the top of Kinder Scout for our work-task of 'gulley blocking'. We 'off-roaded' part of the way in the Rangers Landrovers before completing the journey on foot with a 40 minute walk and climb. By the time we got to where we were working, we were ready for elevenses!!
After our drink, we went to see some of the 'dams' that have already been put in place to try to prevent the peat being washed off Kinder and into the local reservoirs, where it costs the water authorities large amounts of money each year to clean the water so it is suitable for drinking.

Once a dam is in place, most of the water in that small area is stopped from running off Kinder and, instead, the peat silts up behind the dam, eventually making ideal conditions for cotton grass to be planted. As the roots of the cotton grass spread, they help stabilise the peat so it's not as easily eroded away and heather can then be grown as well.
Dams can be made from many different materials: planks, tree trunks, plastic piles or rocks, all of which have been used on Kinder. We were using rocks which had been helicoptered in place in one-ton helibags so we could unload them to build our dams.
Although it rained on us for a short time in the afternoon, we managed to empty many helibags between us and were pleased with what we had achieved :-)

Pitching on Bosley Cloud 19 August 2012

Four volunteers turned out from our group and met up with 5 from the Congleton volunteers and spent some of the day working on the grit stone trail towards the top of Bosley Cloud.

We spent the day working on "pitched" grips or gutters - lines of stones fitted together diagonally across the path designed to direct rain water off the path.  This stops  water collecting on the path and running down hill - so preventing erosion.  Unfortunately not all walkers / cyclist recognise the long term advantage of having these structures and attempt to remove.  Others walk round the end of them or force their way through the vegetation making new parallel scars, sometimes known as a braided path.  The stones we were working with were quite manageable - though some of the structures were finished with larger stones / boulders on the ends - to encourage people to stay on the established path.  The work had been described to us as involving moving boulders but it turned out to be nowhere near as heavy as we had feared.

It started raining shortly after lunch and the weather forecast was poor for the afternoon - so we finished what we were doing and walked down to the cars.  In the event it has stopped raining by the time we were ready to drive off.

Hay raking at Speke Hall 12 August 2012

Seven volunteers turned up at Speke hall and spent the day in a field near the car park "hay raking".  The NT want to convert the field into a flower meadow containing "hayfield" flowers - in order to do this they need to reduce the soil fertility - so that the flowers have some chance of competing against the grass.

The normal way of doing this is to cut and remove  the grass as if making hay.   As it was not practical to remove the cut grass from site it was decided to burn it in small fires - so that most of the field will have lower nutrients but with small patches of richer soil where the fires were.

It rained during the morning which slowed the fires down dramatically - and we raked far more than we were able to burn.  They day dried out again (so did we!) and the sun came out later.

10 mile cycle ride from Gatley station with SCCC - Weds 8th Aug.

Three intrepid MNTVrs joined Stockport Community Cycling Club (SCCC) on one of their Wednesday summer evening rides. Together with members of SCCC and some other 'newbies' that turned up, there were about 40 of us who split into 3 groups to go out cycling - 2 groups doing the same 10mile route a few minutes apart and a smaller group doing a different 6 mile route.

We set off through Gatley, riding on the smaller (less-busy) roads towards Heald Green, cutting down Brown Lane to come out on Styal Road. We continued up Styal Road, passing the airport on our right turning down Moss Lane and passing the airport runway as we looped round past Quarry Bank Mill and over to Handforth. Again, using smaller roads and passages (that I never knew existed!) we headed towards Bruntwood Park, which we rode through before heading back to Gatley station.

It was a fabulous ride on a lovely, warm evening, with good company. Many thanks to the members of SCCC for organising such a pleasant evening:-)

Post and rail fencing at Styal 5 August 2012

I've been on holiday swimming and working in Devon with the NT.  Thanks to Daniel for text and photos

Eight of us and six volunteers from the Merseyside group spent today at Styal replacing a post-and-rail fence near Norcliffe Chapel.  The two groups put in 15 posts and 50m of fence.  The posts and rails were sweet chestnut and came from a forestry plantation in Kent.  Each post had pairs of pre-cut slits at both heights and rails ran “front to back” between adjacent posts.

The warm weather brewed up a spectacular thunderstorm at 3 o’clock and we took shelter from the fat raindrops and ate the last of Daniel’s homebaked chocolate brownies.  As we wound down the work the ranger tweeted about our handiwork (#NTStyalEstate).  The storm soon passed and we all walked the tools back to the toolstore – the first time some in the group had been there.