CRAGG VALE - Cragg Hall Wood

Frank and Frank returned to Cragg Hall Wood to complete the project that CROWS have been working on for a while. There is one path through the wood, which is narrow with a steep drop down to the river. Some years ago part of it became dangerous, and so it was officially closed and fenced off. At that time a new path was created higher up, away from the steep drop.

However, many walkers preferred the remaining part of the narrow path with the steep drop, and so we have now improved it, to make it is easier to use. Previously we built a revetment where it was starting to slip away down the slope, and today we widened the narrowest part, so that you can keep a bit further away from the edge.

Here's Frank H hard at work, with the new revetment just visible behind him.

After a while the path looked like this - the scary drop on the right is not quite as scary as before!

Then we installed two small marker posts with waymarks at the points where the lower path and the upper path meet. Here's the one by the little stream.

And here's the one by the steps up to the higher level path.

After that it was raining hard and blowing a cold wind, so we retreated to the (relative) warmth of the depot to catch up with in-house jobs:- painting the tops of marker posts and poles; numbering and tagging a new tool bag; swilling out the tub for larger azads; clearing the sump of an external drain; attempting (failed!) to rod out same drain; de-rusting the ends of the drain rods; investigating the dust levels (mid-20th century!) on difficult to access ledges and preparing items for Friday's task.

The marker posts in the pictures would have been more visible with yellow tops, but that's possibly a bit too intrusive for a woodland setting.

Today's work was funded by the Luddendenfoot Ward Forum. Many thanks.