Styal (Quarry Bank garden) 27 Jan 2013

With the snow melting and the roads of Cheshire rapidly disappearing under water, it was a brave soul who ventured out on Sunday to work in Quarry Bank Gardens. Safe up on a slope by Quarry Bank House, high above the rapidly rising river Bollin, we worked to clear a really nasty area of bramble and rhodie. As we freed the hillside of scrub, the pile of cuttings grew ever higher...

Sadly there was no fire this week to keep us warm. At lunch time though, we ventured into the shelter of the Mill where we discovered that even the waterwheel was unable to cope with the rising river and had had to be turned off:

In the afternoon, we were spurred on by a swell of curious onlookers (the general public out enjoying their post roast dinner strolls), and proceeded to clear the remainder of the hills side leaving it all ready to be dug over later in the year.