Continuing our work at Hole in the Wall

Since last posting here, we've spent much of our time working on the Hole in the Wall project over in Ullswater.

We've been making decent progress and the lower section of path is now really starting to take shape.

The following photographs give an idea of how the path is developing. You can see how much narrower the new stone path is compared to the wide eroded path and how we've snaked the path to make it more pleasing on the eye and also to remove some of the gradient.

Bottom of path (before starting work)

Bottom of path (after landscaping)

The next two photos show how we've used the spoil that was generated to landscape the path. While building the path, the soil that was dug out was mounded on the left hand side of the footpath. Once the stone work was completed, we removed the turf on the right hand side of the path and shifted the majority of the soil to where the turf had been. This gave us plenty of earth for reprofiling the right hand side of the path. We created humps and dips to make the area less attractive to walk on, which should help guide people onto the stone path rather than cutting the corner. The turf that was removed was used to edge the path to prevent soil falling back onto the stone pitching. We then reseeded the whole area so it should start blending in nicely in a few weeks time.

Lower section (after finishing, before landscaping)

Lower section (after landscaping)

In between working on the path below Hole in the Wall we've also been running regular volunteer work parties on a section of path lower down the valley with the Fix the Fells volunteers. We've been concentrating on drain building, landscaping and adding a few short sections of pitching. The path is now starting to look much more defined and should better handle any heavy downpours.

Fix the Fells volunteers hard at work