Enfield Conservation Volunteers
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Enfield Conservation Volunteers |
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JANUARY 2004
Sunday 4th
Trent Country Park
Sorely in need of good, healthy exercise after the Christmas and New Year break, we could barely wait to get back to Trent Country Park and the Nature Trail woodland to resume our long-running battle against the ever-invasive sycamore.
Led by Christina Lee, the LBE’s Countryside Development Officer, our team of 9 volunteers quickly sprang into action and in no time at all had trees crashing down like ninepins. Because our winch was unavailable, we decided to leave the removal of the stumps until a later date, contenting ourselves with coppicing the trees to between three or four feet above ground level. For safety reasons we restricted public access to the area by means of a dead hedge, which we constructed with branches and stakes from the trees we had felled.
By late afternoon our aching limbs testified to a day of solid, hard work, but we all (or some of us, anyway) felt better for it!
Bob Phillips
Sunday 18th
Jubilee Park
Jubilee Park in Edmonton is an unfamiliar site for ECV, but there is a hawthorn hedge around a mini golf course there which is in the right condition for laying. With the Hedgelaying Competition imminent, this was an ideal opportunity for practice. Eight volunteers left the first section of the hedge as a solid barrier and primed for regeneration.
Steve Mathieson
FEBRUARY
Sunday 1st
Trent Country Park
ANNUAL HEDGE LAYING COMPETITION
This was the LB Enfield’s twelfth annual hedgelaying competition and the hedge used was a stretch of field maple in the New Fields area. A section of this same hedge had been laid in an earlier LB Enfield competition and the rest of the hedge laid by volunteers in the same winter. When farm hedges were routinely maintained by laying, the period between laying would standardly be fifteen years or more, but this relied on the hedges being trimmed every couple of years. The hedge chosen for this years competition had not been touched in the interim and there was more than enough height and bushiness to be laid in.
The teams competing were as follows:
The tree participants from outside the borough who opted to work alone ended up taking the first three places : 1st Ashley 2nd Tony and 3rd Tom. There’s obviously a lot of expertise out there! All three guys were willing to offer useful hints to the locals and the competition was conducted in its usual friendly atmosphere.
Extra thanks are due to ECV volunteers Bob Phillips and Robin Herbert who cleared and burned the spoil and Alan Mitchell who judged the competition.
Steve Mathieson
Sunday 15th
Grovelands Park
For this, our first visit of the year to Grovelands Park, we were joined by 7 members of the East Herts Ramblers enabling us to field a combined workforce of 14 volunteers. The extra pairs of hands proved to be a blessing as the task ahead of us turned out to be somewhat greater than at first thought.
Because of poor drainage, part of a footpath which runs parallel with Broad Walk down towards the childrens’ playground had become a quagmire and quite inaccessible to anybody not wearing Wellington boots.
To improve matters we decided to try to drain off as much water as possible by means of a length of flexible piping laid in a trench, out under the path down into a soak-away in nearby shrubbery. Two lines of railway sleepers were then set on edge roughly one metre apart and the mud and ooze in between removed to the depth of six inches or so. This was replaced by wheel barrow loads of hoggin, in the region of 2.5 to 3 tons in all, and duly levelled off and flattened; the hoggin should in time harden and provide a good firm surface. Meanwhile, members of the team not involved in the main task busied themselves cutting back over hanging branches further along the footpath.
We enjoyed working with the Ramblers – it was a useful and worthwhile day.
Bob Phillips
Sunday 29th
Pymmes Park
Today’s task was to clear around the inside of some of the large planted shrub beds in Pymmes, cutting back trees that threatened to engulf everything else, and from the cut branches, create low dead hedges (where a line of sturdy branches are thrust into the ground and younger, longer and more flexible branches are wound between them in an alternating fashion to form a wall) around some of the larger trees and shrubs to hold in the fallen leaves and stop them from being blown across the park.
Four volunteers attended to help the local ranger, Andy. We completed the work, but due to weather (it started to snow/hail at one point) we finished a little early. An unusual hazard for ECV at this site was the possibility of discovering needles abandoned by drug users, although members of the ranger service had been through the area recently to try to ensure it was clear. As it was, Andy had a ‘sharps’ box with him into which we could carefully put any needles we found.
All in all, a successful day at an improving urban park, where our work will help keep the park looking nice and tidy.
Robin Herbert
MARCH
Sunday 14th
New River Loop - Town Park
Three years after ECV’s last attempt to plant up a bank of the New River near Town Park, we returned. Those plants had either been eaten by the geese again or being marginal plants, had insufficient water round their roots during the dry spells to survive. On the bank, there was a pile of earth and clay that had been removed from the golf course to spread around to provide some extra help to our new plants. Six volunteers got down on hands and knees and planted vast numbers of ………………………………. In addition choking grass and nettles were cleared from further along the bank. We can only hope these ones survive or as I said in March 2001, if not, see you again, same place next year!!
Judy Mayo
Sunday 28th
Pymmes Park
The old bowling green in the park is being developed as a quiet wildlife garden. Areas of the bowling green grass has been left to grow longer and planted with wild flowers with mown paths intersecting these. Our task was to prune the shrubs which border the actual bowling green as they had become very dense and had encouraged the more “wild” elements of the human race to shelter there rather than the wildlife the garden is being designed for! Seven volunteers spent a pleasant day cutting back or removing the overgrown shrubs and trees which opened up the border to allow more light onto the bowling green itself and allow the remaining plants to develop into stronger bushier specimens rather than the light starved stragglers that we were faced with in the morning.
Judy Mayo
APRIL
Sunday 11th
Grovelands Park
Sadly John Mayo died on ….., so as a mark of respect we cancelled this task.
Sunday 25th
Trent Country Park
The entrance to Church Wood from the so-called Cricket Field near Trent Park cafeteria forms part of the London Loop walk, which encircles the entire metropolis. A footbridge across a ditch at this point had fallen into decay and today’s task was to replace it.
When the six volunteers reached the site, they found the crossing point had become something of a quagmire for a greater width than the normal sleeper bridge would span. Showing the ingenuity for which they are renown, the team soon devised a solution. Re-using some of the old bridge material, they placed a third bearer on a high point in the muddy area, and so mad a double sleeper length bridge. As the central bearer had to be placed off line, the sleepers were cut at an angle to make a stylish dogleg in the bridge.
To complete the work, the ditch was dredged to speed its flow and further drainage channels were dug.
Steve Mathieson
MAY
Sunday 9th
Grovelands Park
Last February, when we were carrying out drainage work on a section of the footpath which runs along the back of the children’s playground, it became clear that there were other stretches of the footpath in serious need of attention.
So it was that on May 9th , 6 of us went back, under the leadership of David Smith, the park manager, to tackle another sea of mud some 25 yards further on from the original site. On this occasion, we had to bridge a small rivulet and also widen the path by the removal of one or two bushes and small trees. After that it was a case of laying railway sleepers on edge as shuttering, slopping out the mud and ooze from in between and then in-filling with seemingly endless barrow loads of hoggin. It was hard work and we were all pleased with the end result.
Some 40 yards or so further on, a water-filled ditch crossed the footpath.
To be continued 4th July……..
Bob Phillips
Sunday 23rd
Whitewebbs Park
The post and rail fencing on the mile and a quarter footpath is an ongoing project for ECV. This time the work started from the end of the footpath nearest the Rose and Crown. Some of the original fence posts were able to be reused, but there was still plenty of clearance to be done before the construction.
Only 4 volunteers today, but still a good length of fencing and wiring was completed.
Steve Mathieson
JUNE
Sunday 6th
Pymmes Park
Regrettably, the materials needed for the task had not arrived, so had to be cancelled.
Sunday 20th
Whitewebbs Park
Fancy a paddle? At this task we were splashing about in Cuffley Brook, principally where it crosses Flash Lane. Parallel to Flash Lane and going over Cuffley Brook is an aqueduct, which is now out of use but did once carry the New River (on it’s old course) into London for fresh drinking water from Hertfordshire. A repeating task for us at this site, we were clearing vegetation from around the top of the aqueduct, and from the brook running underneath it. Also, the aqueduct channel itself needed clearing of various debris that had accumulated in it, and we continued our work to keep the two channels under the aqueduct open underneath the aqueduct.
All in all, six volunteers working on what almost always turns out to be a hot and sunny day (and you really notice that when standing on top of a cast iron radiator that the aqueduct becomes!).
Robin Herbert