Dunham Massey on Sunday 12th May 2013

Five of our Group joined with 5 Merseyside Volunteers and, together with Colin, one of the Dunham Rangers, walked from the car park, past the pond and headed towards the courtyard, stopping to admire 5 ducklings lazing in the sun. We heard that they'd been the other side of the bridge yesterday in a section of the moat where some of them couldn't get out so Colin had to set up a ladder system to enable them to climb out when they wanted. He was pleased to see that they all had.

After walking through the courtyard and then down South Drive, we watched Colin feeding the deer - not as many turned up as usual as many are now finding their own food around the park, but it was great watching about 70 of them having their meal, a few of which reared up to 'fight' the others off when they thought they were getting too close!

 

Getting to the end of South Drive, we saw our task for the day!! Two large boggy area's either side of the path which were not draining because the drainage pipe from each area was completely blocked. The farmer on the other side of the brick wall had already dug a trench for the excess water to flow into once the blockages were sorted, which would then flow into the Bolin. The boggy area's were undermining the wall and causing tree's to become unstable so we split into 4 groups, in our wellies and waders, to tackle the task Two groups tried to clear the blockages and dig up some of the reeds and roots so the water would flow better, another group went over the wall to rod the blockages from the other side and the 4th group went up one of the slopes to make a trench deeper so water would drain more easily from that area once the rain came.

Here are photo's to show how boggy it was to start off and of one of our volunteers kitted out in waders having dug out a lot of the reeds and roots.

 

Although we got muddy and wet when the rain came!! we had a great time as we cleared both blocked drains and managed to make 'waterways' though the reeds so the water flowed down to the unblocked drains, under the wall to the fields the other side. There is still much to do and the drains may silt up again, but they'll be much easier to unblock next time and, eventually, when the excess water has cleared from the area's, the bricks we dug out will be used to make the drainage better for the future.
We had a great day, working with another volunteer group and also feeling like we'd really achieved something by the end of the afternoon:-)