7-Oct-25

The Working Party of eight volunteers was working on a variety of jobs near the tunnel this morning, on a dull but dry day.

We assembled near the Northumbrian Water pumping station near Holywell, where we can conveniently park our tools van. We then marched, with all our tools, to the gate at the southern end of the embankment of the old railway. It this point we split into three groups.

One group, of two volunteers, went to clear mud and leaves from the drainage ditch beside the Rest a While seat. This job only took a couple of minutes then they returned to the main party.

Photograph A. Drainage ditch after clearing-out

The second group, of two people, started work on cutting ivy from trees and removing sycamore saplings. This included using the bowsaw to cut down three sycamores that were a bigger than mere saplings.

The third group, of four, started work meanwhile finishing off last week’s work on the gate. A rotten post was removed from the ground – with considerably greater ease than the one that had to be removed last week. Four lengths of timber were cut and attached to the side-panel, replacing the old decaying material. Finally, the gap that people had been pushing through was filled in with a metal grille.

Photograph. B. Repairing gate

Photograph C. Finished gate

As we were finishing for the day, five volunteers went to clear the path of a tree brought down during Storm Amy over the weekend. With loppers and bow saws they soon cleared a path so walkers can get past. Unfortunately the truck of the tree was too big for us to cut, so we will have to send an email to Northumberland County Council to get them to remove it.

Photograph D. Tree blocking path

Photograph E. Partial clearance

Not much to report on the wildlife front, but we were accompanied by a robin while we were having our break, as we often are. I think we are all relieved that Storm Amy did not cause more damage than it did, because the trees were still in full leaf and therefore vulnerable to damage by storm-force winds.

14-Oct-25

A working party of nine turned out on Tuesday morning to do various jobs in the vicinity of the meadow near the stone bridge. We were doing two things that morning: (1) sowing yellow rattle in the meadow, and (2) clearing out drainage channels.

Yellow rattle (Rhinanthus minor) is a native plant which is often used to improve wildflower meadows. It parasitises tall grasses and other large plants by inserting its roots into those of the plants it preys on. It reduces their vigour and thereby reduces the competition they pose to smaller, more attractive wildflowers. The end result is a meadow with a wide variety of flowers that are attractive to butterflies, bees etc.

So, we strimmed and raked some areas of the meadow, then sowed the yellow rattle seed on the prepared ground and pressed them in. I guess we’ll see how well it has worked next summer.

Photograph A. Meadow sowed with yellow rattle

This work was done by a group of three volunteers. The other six meanwhile set to work clearing out the gully or small ditch running down one side of the Hartley West Farm access road where it comes down a steep bank. Mattocks and spades were the main tools used.

Photograph B. Clearing channel

Photograph C. Result

We do this every year to prevent water flowing down the slope and flooding the meadow as happened a couple of years ago. (We also installed a field drain in the meadow for the same reason.)

The next job was to dig a channel along one side of the stone bridge. The objective, again, was to keep water flowing along the side of the roadway not across it.

While this was going on, the four volunteers who had been sowing yellow rattle started work clearing the channel that runs from the road to the river across the land close to the dipping pond. This also needs an annual clean-out.

It was a dull, misty and damp day without much wildlife interest, but we noticed there was large flock of rooks at the tall beeches alongside Hartley Lane which were calling loudly and flying around apparently aimlessly. A little wren sang loudly as we were having our refreshment break – which was made more pleasant by our lady chair bringing a tin of choccy treats, I think to celebrate our financially successful coffee morning on Saturday.

28-Oct-25

A project to improve the drainage of the path along the west side of the estuary was commenced this morning by nine volunteers, on a sunny but chilly day.

Memories of the dry months of the 2025 summer are a fading memory now, and the theme of today was mud – wet, sticky mud. Indeed the whole idea of the project is to combat mud and improve the walkability of the estuary path. The problem is that there is a steep slope above the west-side path, which means that when it rains, water pours down onto the path making it muddy and puddley.

The long-standing solution has been to have a ditch along the up-slope side of the path and a series of gullies across the path to get the water away and into the burn. Today we were improving the gullies by digging them out, putting a plastic culvert tube in and covering over with flat stones.

The flat stones were obtained from the river bed. There used to be a stepping-stone crossing, but the stones had got displaced by the force of the burn and were scattered about, along with other stones.

We started off using our hand winch to haul stones out of the river. It soon became apparent, however, that this was too slow so we hauled the stones out by hand to the river bank, then used the winch to get them up and onto the bank.

Photograph A. Removing stones from river

Having got them out, we used our sack-trolley (which has hardly been used before now) to get them to where they were needed.

While four volunteers were doing this, the other five were digging out one of the cross-path gullies. A length of plastic pipe was laid in the trench which was then filled in and paved over with stones from the river.

Photograph B. Digging out gully

By the time this was complete, we were past the halfway mark of the session so rather than dig out another gully, we decided to repair a section of path that had become eroded. This involved digging out the mud from the eroded section and placing flat river stones in that place.

Photograph C. Repaired path.

We will undoubtedly be back next week to continue this project.

The estuary is always good for wildlife, and today we saw a little egret, a heron and lots of mallard, and heard the haunting call of the redshank – the “sentinel of the marsh”. The trees are turning to their autumn shades and the beeches, in particular, are a beautiful mixture of green, yellow and copper.

21-Oct-25

Eleven volunteers met up at Dene Cottage, on an overcast day with a forecast of showers, for a day of gully clearance in the estuary area and some tree-planting in the same area.

After a quick safety talk and with everyone knowing what job they were doing, off we went with two wheelbarrows of tools and left-over silver birch saplings from our silver jubilee tree planting. Two volunteers took charge of the tree planting, deciding the best position for the saplings. After the planting they rejoined the main party.

The main party went up the estuary to the wooden bridge and started to clear the gullies of mud and leaves. It wasn’t long before the expected rain started to fall, but luckily the trees that line the path provided us with some cover.

Photograph A. Clearing out side-gullies

Photograph B. Clearing out cross-gully

We made good progress, moving slowly back along the path towards the van, clearing path-side and drainage gullies. We also dug a couple of new gullies to drain some areas which are now getting flooded.

I don’t know whether it was fortunately or unfortunately – with the rain falling – but the time beat us, so we cleaned up the tools and headed back to the van and home for a shower and a spot of lunch.

One of us kept an eye open for wildlife and landscape photo opportunities (see Facebook). So here’s a composite image of some of the wildlife she recorded.

Photograph C. Wildlife