Tuesday 29 November 2011

Dunham Massey 29 Novemeber 2011

Thirteen volunteers turned out to Dunham Massey. The original plan was to spend the day cutting and burning rhododendron, but it the weather was to windy to do this safely.

So the group helped the staff to experiment with the idea of a "subsoil" path. I've heard of these in upland areas but no one really knew how it would work out in the deer park.

There is path between the obelisk and farm walk along the edge of the deer sanctuary that had become very muddy due to a combination of rotting leaves, shadow, and poor drainage. We scrapped off the soft mud / leaf mould and found that there was a far firmer layer a few inches down. We then removed the top soil from a trench next to the line of the path, revealing a layer of sandy soil further down. This was then dug out onto the path, shaped to form a "camber", raked smooth and trodden down. We had quite a lot of fun with various combinations of volunteers treading the sand into place while trying to coordinate dance moves or space invader impressions! To finish the job and tidy up the top soil was used to part fill the trench, smoothing it out to leave the area as safe as possible, for both wildlife and humans. The raised bank of sand should stay comparatively dry and we hope will pack down to form a firm stable surface.

It will be interesting to monitor this section of path in the future to see how it behaves.

Sunday 20 November 2011

Victoria Baths

It appears to have become a tradition to go slightly astray from the our usual NT haunts and spend a day in the autumn at Victoria baths. Once again I took the day off - so thankyou to Daniel for the text and Nathan for the photos.

Today ten of us volunteered at the Victoria Baths in Manchester (www.victoriabaths.org.uk). It’s not a National Trust property but we know Neil Bonner, one of the staff there, and visit once a year. The building won the BBC’s Restoration programme in 2003 and with it prize money from the National Lottery. That was spent making the building weatherproof and refurbishing the stained-glass windows across the front. Work continues to restore the baths to their former glory and return them to public use.

We did a number of jobs in groups of twos and threes:

Removing cables from the Males 1st Class cabins
Removing the pool cover mechanisms from the Females and Males 1st Class pools
Vacuuming the flooring over the Males 2nd Class pool
De-weeding the car park

Cleaning the basement windows inside and out
Cleaning the paths at the front of the building

In between work sessions Neil gave us a fascinating tour of the building, from the farthest corners of the basement to the top of the superintendent’s flat and all places in between.

Sunday 13 November 2011

Hare Hill 13 November 2011




Eleven volunteers turned out and spend a bright sunny day digging.

We were on our own working on the drains in the parkland around Hare Hill gardens. The section we had been asked to look at had been replaced at some stage in its history with a length of yellow corrugated perforated plastic pipe. It looked as if the original drain had been damaged when this was done. The yellow pipe was brittle and had collapsed in a number of places as well as being full of sediment. We did managed to find some surviving sections of the original culvert in a couple of places under the yellow pipe. The pipe got deeper both at the top and bottom of the section we were working on and disapeared under water.We didn't follow it all the way as we had to leave the site in a safe state at the end of the day.

Wednesday 9 November 2011

Trip to Paradise Golf at the Trafford Centre - Tuesday 8 November 2011

A group of regular MNTVers visited the Trafford Centre on Tuesday 8 November to test out our mini-golfing skills at the Paradise Golf indoor mini-golf centre. There were two courses to choose from, and we pitted our wits against various obstacles throughout the various holes. Some holes proved more difficult than others (with appropriate "rain forest" background commentary from various species proving quite offputting for Sue!), and Megan showed us all how it should be done when she holed-in-one on the very first hole! By the time we reached the 18th, we had all managed at least one hole-in-one each, but I suspect that Daniel has done this before as he seemed to be taking it very seriously with low scoring throughout.













There was a tricky bonus 19th hole which we all had a single shot at (as it collected all the balls) - Alex and I both managed to hole it in one, so we will have to visit the course again to claim our free game! The night was rounded off with some well earned refreshments in the Orient, so thanks to everyone for coming to an enjoyable evening.

Monday 7 November 2011

"Hayfield" Gulley blocking 6 November 2011

On a number of work days in the past we have loaded various materials into white cubic meter bags "to be used for gully blocking on the top" - this time we got to empty some

- Thanks to Mick for the words and Nathan for the photos.

On the morning of a beautiful November day - crisp and cold, with hoarfrost in the dells where the sun hadn't yet reached - thirteen volunteers ventured up onto the Kinder plateau. Such a large number was more than could be taken up in the NT Land Rovers, so quite a few opted to walk up from South Head farm, which was serving as the car park.
The day's task was making small dams out of stones airlifted on to Kinder for this purpose. The dams form barriers in peat gullies and will catch peat which would otherwise be eroded from the moor. Once enough peat has collected behind these mini dams, they can be planted with cotton-grass to further slow the loss of the peat.The rangers estimated that this would happen in about eighteen months. As well as actively trapping peat, the gully-blocking reduces the flow rate of the flash streams that form after rain. As the particle carrying capacity of a stream or river is proportional to it's flow rate, this means that the slower streams will carry less peat and other material off the moor. (If anyone is interested in reading a report about gully-blocking on South Pennine moorlands, you can find one here: moors for the future

The group were working in the gullies of the catchment area of Edale Head, above Jacob's Ladder. We finished the task at 2:30 and those walking enjoyed a more leisurely stroll back to South Head than the uphill trek. The rangers were surprised and pleased that all the planned gully-blocking in that area was finished and were just left with several groups of empty sacks to be helicoptered down for refilling.