Cawston Greenway

Aaron, John, Mick and myself this morning and we tackled the last bit of work on the drainage.

The problem that we have is that the drain covers that would have been either side of the track, are now higher than the ground. This means rain water cannot escape. This problem is confounded by the stream that passes under the track, that the drains lead to, is blocked. This means that the stream is dumping its water onto the greenway, rather than flowing under it and along on its merry way.

We have dug a gully and tried to direct the water across the greenway and have lifted the drain cover to allow the water to drain off. We have also created an area that will act as a flood plain. Hopefully this will hold the excess water when we have heavy rainfall.

This area was totally flooded before we started.

We have built a hedge around the wet bits. This is to stop people walking into it. We made a dry path to one side. This area will be great for wildlife. There is ivy that will grow across the hedge and I intertwined a few living trees into it.

Our first visitor!

Great work today. Also great work from Sam and crew on the clearing that they are working on.

Next week we are back in the Picnic Clearing ripping out everything ready for spring. 9:15 am start.

Paul

Five of us today, John, Aaron, Kerrie, Chris and myself, with a cameo appearance from Mike at Butterfly Conservation. Always happy to take guidance from the experts. The good news is that we are on the right track in creating a superb butterfly habitat.

We spent the first hour clearing the last bit of brash from the bank and when this was done, we brought down a few more trees on the edge of the clearing and started stripping these and throwing the brash on the fire.

We now hand this area over to Sam and gang to work on it to get their Duke of Edinburgh award. They will be clearing the north bank and creating a dead hedge at the top of the bank.

When we got to the point where the fire was starting to burn down, Aaron and John had a look at the flooding at Berrybanks. Before long a trench was dug on top of the underground aqueduct and most of the water was running over to the other side of the greenway.

A lot of work to do in this area, but whilst it is so wet, it is easy to see where the water is trying to flow to, and redirect it. Because of this, we decided to work on this area next Monday. We can route the path either side of the trench and create a lake in the middle.

Our next weekender is 5th December at 12:00 helping Sam and gang clearing the north bank of Bluebell cutting.

Our next weekday is 16th December at Berrybanks starting at around 9:15 am.

Thanks for all who made it today.

Paul

A lovely morning where we just spent the time catching up.

Mike, Aaron, Chris and myself. We caught up with burning off the brash from last week, and adding the the hedge at the top of the cutting. We also planted a load of bluebell bulbs that were kindly given to us by a local resident.

Next weekender is Sat 7th November starting at 12:00.

Same place next week where we can carry on towards The Bear. There is a lovely mature tree that will make a nice feature of the cutting. This is where we need to get to.

Great day today.

Paul