Today five of us made the journey to Gawthorpe Hall which is just on the outskirts of Padiham near Burnely. It was to have been six but unfortunately Hazel Longton, a former MNTV colleague who has recently moved to this area, was going to join us but tested positive for covid this morning so didn't make it.
We met Kayleigh the ranger, who joined Gawthorpe last August and is the sole ranger at the site, before making our way to the work site. As we were walking Kayleigh was telling us how much the balsam had taken hold in places due to the lock down and not having volunteers to help clear it.
It was quite a large area of dense balsam and in some areas it was quite marshy. We set to and started pulling and breaking and crushing as much as we could in the time that we had and apart from Andy H getting stung by a bee we had a really good day. Kayleigh was more than made up with the difference we had made and couldn't believe how much we had cleared.
As a reward for our endeavours we had a tour of the hall. It is such a beautiful place built in 1601 and it had remained in the Shuttleworth family until the 1960s when unfortunately due to the two world wars direct descendants had either been killed or died and the heir, being a cousin who already had an ancestral home, left it to the National Trust but still has some say in its running. The hall itself is on lease to Lancashire Council so is not run by the Trust.
We had a lovely day, thankfully shaded from the sun as it was rather warm! Thank you to Kayleigh for her hospitality and giving us the chance to view the hall and thank you to my colleagues for their hard work.
Christine
No comments:
Post a Comment