CROWS (Community Rights Of Way Service): HEBDEN BRIDGE: Falling Royd

Falling Royd: drainage and cutting back

A cloudy but largely fine day for Eleanor and Frank H to investigate a drainage problem on a Falling Royd footpath (Hebden Royd 018), and to cut back some invasive holly and scrub on the same path.

i. The drainage:

Water was emerging onto a section of the path about 75 m above Acacia House. The water flowed down the path, created a mini waterfall at a stile and then spread out towards the lane that leads on to the Burnley Road.

The plan was to:

i) clear scrub from the path edges so pedestrians would have a less wet route!

ii) investigate the breach where water emerges on to the path, clear any blockages and construct a trap/sump.

Here's how the job went:

1. Earlier: Water on path - it's much
wetter than it looks!

2. Today: Path wider and drier

3. Earlier: Mini waterfalls at the stile and
wet path further up.

4. Today: path much drier.

These differences were mainly due to the rain-free overnight conditions but also to the work we did in clearing a culvert. The water runs left to right through a stone culvert (picture 5). The culvert (we think) passes under a drystone wall to the right. There has been some settlement of the wall so the culvert is not operating correctly.

We managed to clear debris from the culvert and construct a trap/sump (picture 6). Later we added two capping stones to cover the open-top of the trap.

5. Stone culvert: partially blocked

6. Water trap under construction.

The drainage here is complicated. There may be further culverts that run down towards a road drain or that drop the water vertically into the grounds of Acacia House (This point is identified as 'issues' on the detailed OS map). Investigating these, however, is a complicated engineering project that CROWS would not be able to undertake.

ii. The cutting back.

The afternoon task was simpler! Holly that was encroaching onto the path was cut back.