CHARLESTOWN - Turret Hall woods

Permissive Path off Turret Hall Road, below Wood Farm

 1. Arriving at the depot to pick up the tools we find Ken hard at work cutting the points on stobs. Thanks, Ken. Much appreciated.

2. Then it was off to the woods above Charlestown to work on a popular, permissive, woodland path.

A useful shortcut through a lovely wood

 

Big team today

 

 Lynda clearing overgrown holly.

i) Eleanor and Lynda worked at the far end of the path cutting back and clearing some old but serviceable steps. 

Overgrown steps all cleared

Sign revealed

 ii) Rich, Jan and Billie worked on path widening and a drainage problem.

The water seeping across the path was captured in a cross-drain then channelled into a shallower drain to take it across the path. There were already signs of the path drying out before we left.

Water starting to run

Lovely bit of drain work

iii) Frank H and Nick worked on the decaying sections of a set of steps

Start of the session:

This is the top section of the steps. Risers and stobs are rotten. Some steps have collapsed and walkers have been skirting around the problem and causing further erosion.

By lunchtime:

Three new steps firmly in place. Tread areas graded, risers horizontal and side sections roughly banked.

There were the remains of multiple sets of stobs for any one step so there must have been several re-builds here over the years.

The afternoon session:

The whole flight on this permissive path is shown with the morning's work at the top, just visible.

Towards the end of the session:

A gracefully curving flight with new steps at the top and the bottom.

All tread areas have been graded and risers scraped clear of encroaching mulch to give a flight that gains height in a regular fashion.

Side sections have been more neatly banked and miscellaneous debris carefully stacked (out of sight) to continue rotting.

Overall this was an enjoyable step-building session with only a couple of  serious problems with 'resistant ground' conditions. Phew! . . . lucky! lucky! 

Several walkers and dog exercisers passed us during the day and were complimentary about our efforts and the quality of  our work. Thank you.

iv) 

MORE  PHOTOS

Nearly everyone also did cutting back encroaching vegetation, path widening/levelling and removing trip hazards.

Many thanks to the landowner for keeping this path open and funding the work. In Spring, the path runs through a carpet of bluebells - an absolute joy. 

Throughout the day we were joined by several cheeky Robins

Waiting for us to uncover some goodies!