News Archive 2023 Jan-Mar
Happy New Year to all our readers!
The task for the eleven-volunteer working party today was removing ivy from trees – on a cold and windy day with muddy ground under foot.
Now, the objective of this work is not to eradicate ivy altogether but to keep it under control. The problem is that ivy keeps its leaves on in winter, meaning that a heavily ivy-clad tree is much more likely to blow down in a storm. And because we don’t want trees to blow down across paths and into the river, a bit of control is necessary.
Ivy is a native species. It produces flowers in the autumn (useful for pollinators such as bees) and berries in the spring (good food for birds to eat). Owls and other birds often nest in amongst its leaves. It isn’t a parasite, but it does take a “free ride” off the trees that it clings to. Anyway, there’s little chance of eradicating ivy in Holywell Dene – it is very abundant, and all we wish to do is limit its spread.
So, we parked the tools van at the nice new parking bay provided for our use by Northumbrian Water. This is at the entrance to the water pumping station down the lane from East Grange, Holywell. A couple of wheelbarrows were loaded up with bowsaws, loppers, secateurs, etc and off we went to the old railway line embankment.
Here we started work. As the morning went on, we worked slowly up the line of the Dene to the oxbow lake (or pond) and beyond.
Of course it’s impossible to remove the ivy from a tall tree completely, so all we do is cut a section out of the stems of the ivy at the bottom of the tree-trunk. That kills off the ivy, which subsequently falls out of the tree over time as it decays.
Here are a couple of pictures to give an idea of the work.
Photograph A. Cutting ivy
Photograph B. A section cut out of an ivy stem
The wildlife must have been hiding from the chilly wind, because we saw little of it, apart from:
some long-tailed tits in the treetops overhead
an unidentified bird that flew off
er, that’s about it!
It was not possible to do river clearance work today because the river was high and fast-flowing after recent rains. Perhaps next week
A party of nine volunteers turned up at Saint Paul’s church in Seaton Sluice for the third attempt to widen the path below the church. The first attempt was cancelled because of rain, and last week the ground was frozen solid.
With wheelbarrows loaded, we had a short walk to the bottom of the bank to begin work. We split into two teams and started at both ends, hoping to meet in the middle. One of the volunteers headed to our store of gravel and started to free it from weeds that had grown round it so we could access it freely.
The tools we required this week were mattocks, spades, rakes and a gravel spade. We tried to make the path just over a spade’s length wide so it would be a uniform width, but we also had to keep checking which side to remove the grass from, because the grass had encroached onto the path in a very uneven way.
Photograph A. Path widening #1
The mattocks were used to slice the grass like layers in a cake until we got to the gravel from the former path, and the spades were used to lift the cut grass into the wheelbarrows. It was then removed to a location behind the gravel store and fresh gravel was transported to replace any gravel that was missing.
Photograph B. Path widening #2
Photograph C. Path widening #3
Our chairperson arrived just as we were having our refreshment break and produced warm sweet mince pies, and a couple of delicious scones filled with jam were also an instant hit with a couple of the team.
The day had started off with coats still on, as there was a chill in the air, but as the morning went on the layers came off. It was a big push but we had achieved the length of path-clearing we wanted to by the finishing time and it was just a short walk back to our van at the end of another busy Tuesday.
A party of ten volunteers turned up at the Wallridge Drive gas pumping station for a morning of river clean-up. The river has been running high for the last couple of weeks, but it had dropped considerably so it was a good time to get stuck into this task.
There were three areas we wanted to clear so we split into two teams, one team headed to a blockage about 100 yards downstream from the bridge at Concord House to finish the removal of a massive tree trunk which we had to leave a while back because time beat us then. A winch was set up and a snatch block, while the trusty chainsaw cut the trunk into manageable pieces.
Photograph A. Removing tree trunk
For those who don’t know: you use the snatch block to help lift the object up out of the water by running the wire cable through it; it changes the cable from a straight line from winch to tree-trunk to an angled one, so it lifts it up over the rim of the river bank and onto level ground – and then you have a straight pull to clear the trunk to a safe area.
Photograph B. Operating winch
While this was happening the second group went to another blockage above another 100 yards downstream again. Two volunteers donned waders and got into the river. It was the first time for one of them, but they soon got the hang of walking knee-deep in very muddy water. The only tool we needed was a rake to drag as much debris as possible across to the river bank and pass it to the rest of group to be disposed of.
The first group finished their task and as they were passing on their way to the third blockage they left the winch to remove the bigger tree trunks which couldn’t be removed by hand.
The third blockage was just up from the Holywell road bridge where the big pipes cross the river. The blockage was where debris had accumulated between both river banks and the stone section that supports the pipeline across the river. This blockage could be removed without tools, passing by hand any debris that had accumulated there to the river bank.
Photograph C. Clearing third blockage
Three blockages removed, we headed back to the van after another good morning’s work.
Tuesday saw thirteen volunteers assemble at the metal gate on the Hartley West farm road for a morning of path maintenance. This was a sunny day with a spring-like feel, although snowdrops are not really out yet in the bottom of the dene.
Path maintenance was the main work of the day, but a small tree clearance task was also on the agenda. Here, a tree had actually fallen across the river and its topmost branches were obstructing the north-bank path. This had been alleviated earlier by one of our volunteers acting on his own initiative. Today, what was needed was to finish the job by lopping off several of the branches with the chainsaw – which was done by our new second chainsaw operator – and dragging branches clear – by the second volunteer.
Photograph A. Fallen tree (in January)
Photograph B. Tree sorted
Two squads were meanwhile working on the paths. The first, of six people, worked on the riverside path between the lower wooden bridge and the waterfall. Here, spades, a mattock and a rake were used to clear the accumulation of leaf-mould and soil from the up-bank side of the path and put it on the down-bank side, thus levelling the path.
Photograph C. Levelling the riverside path
Aggregate was wheel-barrowed from the pile downstream to finish the surface. The two tree-bashers joined this party after completing their work. There were lots of walkers today, and this caused a bit of disruption to the work on this narrow path.
The second squad were meanwhile tackling the steepish section of the path along the north dene top which is an extension of the bridleway. Here, water flow had gouged something of a trench along the middle line of the path, so the job was to fill this in with material from the sides of the path and thus level it up.
Photograph D. Levelling the dene-top path
Smaller tree roots were hacked out and larger ones were filled around. Some soil was robbed from the root-mass of a fallen tree to fill depressions in the path in places. A person on a mobility scooter came along during the morning, which was a reminder of why this path-levelling work is worthwhile.
The wildlife was more active today:
great spotted woodpecker drumming and calling
rooks, jackdaws, blue tit, great tit, robin, nuthatch, blackbird all making their presence felt
a song-thrush was singing
snowdrops are in full bloom up the bank near Hartley
a big flock of pink-footed geese was spotted in a field alongside Hartley Lane; maybe they are about to set off for their breeding grounds in Greenland and Iceland
Photograph E. Snowdrops
Keeping the paths in the Dene well-maintained is an endless task, and will no doubt keep us busy for as long time to come.
Eleven volunteers turned out at St Paul’s Church, Seaton Sluice, today for a morning’s path refurbishment at the north-eastern end of the estuary. This was a frosty morning at first, but the smiling sun soon warmed things up.
The morning’s work is easy to describe but hard work to do. Basically, we were using spades, mattocks and rakes to clear off the turf that has been encroaching on either side of the aggregate surface of the path. By doing so, we were restoring it to roughly its original width, whilst making the surface more level and less muddy.
Photograph A. Path restoration
The removed turf was taken by wheelbarrow and dumped near the path. New aggregate was retrieved from an old heap and applied to the surface of the path in places for “levelling up”.
The estuary made a beautiful setting for this work.
Photograph B. Estuary and Melton Constable pub
It was a good day for wildlife, with a lot of bird-song going on. Here is a flavour:
a couple of redshanks (wading birds) plodging in the shallows and calling to each other
a heron was spotted flying off early in the session
a dunnock was singing; also a song-thrush
woodpigeons, a chaffinch, a pheasant, a carrion crow, jackdaws, goldfinches were all calling
black-headed gulls were squawking as they bobbed about on the estuary, while herring gulls were hanging around the fish-and-chip shop hoping for feeding opportunities
a dabchick or little grebe has been seen lately diving near the overturned boat in the estuary
The “crack” of the day covered Valentines’ Day and the strange fact that we seemed at one point to be removing material and dumping a very similar material in its place.
Nevertheless, the result is an excellent refurbished path from the foot of the slope down from the church to a point opposite Dene Cottage.
Photograph C. Restored path
A party of eight volunteers met at our newly-made car park at the Northumbrian Water pumping station at Holywell. It was very mild for this time of year, with no wind to speak of.
We split into two teams, the first heading just yards along the top path along from the pumping station to clear a fallen tree which had come down a while back and had landed on the fence and broken it. The chain saw was soon in action chopping the tree into manageable pieces. These were placed among the trees for the wildlife to colonise.
Photograph A. Clearing tree
The broken fence was too far gone to rescue but the wood was taken to restore the steps beside the stone railway bridge which had been partially removed when the local council resurfaced the waggonway. The steps that had not been removed were cleaned and restored and new steps were added, so walkers could use them safely.
Photograph B. Restoring steps
The rest of the team had descended onto the small path which takes you from the from the top path to the waggonway. This had become over grown in parts, so with the mattocks and spades we cleared the undergrowth back to the original border. A drainage channel was also dug out to help drainage of the path.
Photograph C. Widening path
This short stretch of path had a wire netting fence which had served its purposes and was sagging and leaning over onto the path so it was decided to use the remaining time we had left to remove that fence. Once removed this, along with the tools, were returned to our work van to be disposed of in the appropriate way.
As it’s the school half term, there was a lot of foot traffic down the dene today taking advantage of the lovely weather.
Clearing yet another river blockage was the main task for the volunteer working party today. The meeting place was the new parking space kindly created for us by Northumbrian Water near the water-pumping station down the lane from Holywell Dene Road in Holywell. The weather was damp and drizzly at first, but got out brighter and drier later – although there was a lot of slimy mud under foot.
We loaded up our wheelbarrows with a winch and various wood-cutting and log-shifting tools, and set off with both a conventional chainsaw and a long-handled one. The site of the logjam was slightly downstream from the feature we call the ox-bow pond – on the south side up from the tunnel under the disused railway line and well down from the Holywell road bridge.
The multi-stemmed willow tree in question had fallen awkwardly across the burn and was partly propped up by a broken tree trunk on the north bank. It was resting on about four pressure points, so it was a bit of a conundrum to work out how to dismantle it without any risk of it rolling over unexpectedly.
Anyway, two lady volunteers in waders got in the burn first to start the initial clearance of the logjam of smaller branches and river litter that had built up. These items were handed out of the river and deposited well away from the flow by a bucket-brigade of volunteers.
Photograph A. Initial logjam clearance
Next the job of picking off the branches one by one with the chainsaw commenced. Log after log emerged and these were hauled up onto dry land using the trusty hand winch. These were dumped on ground away from the river.
Photograph B. Winching out a log
Meanwhile, man-made litter was picked out, including part of a wheelie bin and a piece of plastic from a road sign that had obviously been used as a one-off barbecue rest.
Photograph C. End result: all clear
A barrel, probably used as a horse jump, had been spotted in the river, so two of us went upriver to get it out and do further river clearance.
The wildlife scene today:
A dipper (a dark-coloured water bird) was “walking under water”, the way they do, quite close to where we were working, and apparently unconcerned.
A great spotted woodpecker was heard drumming.
The usual suspects were heard singing: great tits, blackbirds, etc, etc.
A skylark was singing over the fields as we walked back to our cars parked in Holywell.
The season has turned springwards, and there are snowdrops everywhere. We will be out in the Dene again next Tuesday for more fresh air and exercise, and hoping for less muddy conditions.
Another good turnout of eleven volunteers assembled at St. Paul’s Church, Seaton Sluice this morning for a path-restoration session, on a day which was sunny and not too cold so long as you were out of the wind. Fortunately we dodged the hailstorm that happened about two in the afternoon.
Photograph A. The location
The path in question is the one that starts between the church and the chippie near the road bridge over the Seaton Burn estuary. It is a path with a steep section running down to the level ground alongside the estuary channel. It was originally a 1.5-metre wide gravel path with timber edgings, but it had gradually narrowed over the years to the point that you wouldn’t think it was a prepared footpath. The project today: to restore it to its original state, so far as possible.
So, with a couple of wheelbarrows full of spades, mattocks, rakes and other tools, we set off down to the bottom of the slope and started work. It seemed like slow progress at first, but once we got into the swing of it, and fueled by the odd break for tea and coffee, we actually managed to get the job done within the time allotted.
Photograph B. Work in progress
So, why not have a walk along there and admire the results? We have scraped the turf off to get down to the old gravel (dumping the turf and soil a distance away) and replenished the gravel on the path surface with new stuff from the nearby storage pile.
While were doing this, we filled in some of the holes in the grassy area made by rabbits digging for roots – it was an easy way to get rid of some of the removed soil. Another “public service” we performed was to pick up some of the litter dumped near the carpark. Why would someone dump old curtain rails at what we think is a beauty spot?
As usual we spotted some wildlife while we were working:
a great spotted woodpecker drumming nearby
a flight of six or more redshanks (wading birds) over the water of the estuary
a little dunnock singing, and of course plenty of gulls overhead
The task over, the only thing left to be done was escaping home without succumbing to the temptation to go into the fish-and-chip shop. Don’t worry, its lunchtime trade was brisk enough.
Incidentally. last week’s session was called off because of snow. We have had a lot of cancellations this winter: frozen ground made work impossible on 13 December and 17 January; sessions were rained off on 6 December and 10 January and we went home after less than an hour’s work on 15 November.
The working party today numbered nine and gathered at the Hartley Lane carpark at 9:00 as usual, for a morning of willow weaving, on a nice spring day when the weather varied between cloudy, sunny and rainy.
If you go upstream from the wooden bridge at the head of the estuary, you come to a seat on the left looking out across the Seaton Burn. If you sit there you will see a screen of willows. The reason for its existence is that in the past there has been a lot of river-bank erosion there, partly caused by dogs rushing down from the path into the river.
Our task today was to improve that screen by bending the willow stems down and weaving them together to form a barrier. We also pruned the longer willow stems and pressed the clippings into the ground in a line along the river bank in the hope that they will grow and create a denser barrier. We also did a bit of surgery on trees along the path and along the riverside up from the seat – removing lower branches, etc.
Photograph A. Willow-weaving
Photograph B. Result
Hopefully, the roots of all these willows with stabilise the river bank and reduce erosion, and hopefully we have created a barrier to stop dogs jumping in the river. It’s not that we don’t like dogs, you understand – but in their enthusiasm to get into the water they do a lot of damage to the bank.
Photograph C. Trimming trees
The wildlife scene was vibrant today:
A chiffchaff was heard singing away near where we were working. These little birds get in from Africa about this time every year, in time for the emergence of insects, which they eat.
Also singing or calling: song thrush, goldfinches, robin, greenfinch, moorhren, wren, curlew, woodpigeons, pheasant, rooks and a dunnock.
Herons were congregating in the trees on the opposite side of the river upstream from where we were working. They will probably be nesting there.
The blackthorn is in bloom – white blossom on a black, thorny bush with no leaves yet.
The daffodils are blooming and many trees are budding, indeed the hawthorns are bursting into leaf.
As soon as we got back to our cars, the intermittent drizzle we had experienced during the morning turned into full-on rain, so that was good timing!
The metal gate on the Hartley West Farm road was the meeting-place for a nine-volunteer working party this morning, and the job was to reinforce the banks of the burn with willows – on a dull and chilly day, with mud under foot and rain in the air.
The outcome of our work can be viewed either side of the Seaton Burn as it runs down the straight stretch between the lower wooden bridge and the meadow.
After loading up a couple of wheelbarrows with tools, we trekked from the van to the old willow-plantation site by the river’s edge on the straight. The party then split into two groups. One went over the water to the south bank to harvest stems from the willows on that side. These were pushed into the soil alongside the river at the site where the path was redirected not long ago because of the undermining of the bank. These should grow into full-size willow trees, whose roots, we hope, will stabilise the loose soil of the river bank.
Photograph A. Willows planted along river bank
Meanwhile the second group was working to restore willow reinforcements at the plantation site. Our efforts to apply willow-weaving techniques were made a bit difficult by the fact that these willows have already grown quite large, and their trunks were not easily bent over. Nevertheless, we thinned the willow stems with billhooks and axes, bent the stems down into a horizontal position, then wove the long, whippy twigs together to form a barrier. Finally, we pushed willow whips harvested from the trees into the soft ground in amongst the weavings to, hopefully, make new trees to add to the barrier.
Photograph B. Willow weaving
The point of all this is to reduce erosion of the river bank by (a) encouraging the development of dense willow root systems, and (b) cordoning off the river from access by dogs – which are quite a force of erosion when it comes to river banks! We’ve nothing against dogs, but their tendency to rush down into the water does cause a lot of river bank damage.
On the way back to the van we cleared away a hawthorn bush that had fallen across the path.
Photograph C. Clearing up hawthorn (and blackthorn blossom)
A lot of wildlife action was detected again, despite the rather depressing weather:
• Singing and calling: chiffchaffs in numbers, long-tailed tits, chaffinch, robin, blackbird, song thrush, rooks, curlew, great tit, pheasant.
• The blackthorn is in full bloom. If you see bushes seemingly coated in icing sugar, they are likely blackthorn bushes, which produce masses of delicate white flowers in March before the leaves come on – see photo above.
• The meadow upstream of the stone bridge is worth a visit at the moment: the native daffodils that we planted many years ago are coming into bloom and look glorious, especially if the sun is shining on them.
The willow weaving work is not yet done, so watch this space for further developments on that front.
By the way, Hartley Lane had been blocked off when we were going home because of works going on somewhere near the Earsdon end. We don’t know how long that will be going on, but watch out!
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