Deer Fencing around the Central and Eastern lakes

Since finishing our upland path repair programme for the year we've been working lower down on the property. To date, much of our work has been in the National Trust owned woodlands in Ambleside, Windermere and Troutbeck.

Our first job was extending a deer exclosure at Common Wood just outside Windermere. We originally worked on the exclosure back in 2020 but it was decided that we should double its size.

The exclosure will allow the woodland to regenerate without any grazing by deer or sheep, which should give an opportunity for woodland flowers to come through without being nibbled off.

Deer Fence at Common Wood

Once we'd finished at Common Wood we moved on to Skelghyll Woods on the outskirts of Ambleside, which is home to some of the tallest trees in Cumbria. This area had recently had a considerable amount of Larch extracted so the deer fence will once again allow for natural regeneration of both trees and ground flora.

Skelghyll deer exclosure

As a bit of a break from deer fencing we spent a couple of days gathering slate from one of the National Trust's disused quarries near Coniston. The stone will be flown up onto Gowbarrow Fell later on in the year and will be used to build drains.

Trailer loaded with stone

Our final deer exclosure was at Hird Wood at the end of Troutbeck Valley, near Kirkstone. Here the predominantly Alder woodland has been freshly coppiced, which will allow more light into the fenced off area again helping to promote woodland flower growth. All the exclosures are a minimum of 50m x 50m and will remain in place for at least five years.

Deer Fence at Hird Wood

Just outside Hird Wood are the remains of Low Kingate stone circle. Few of the stones are still standing and three have been incorporated into a dry stone wall (two of which can be seen in the photo below). It would have originally been a concentric (two-ringed) circle with the inner circle standing upon a mound and the outer circle being about 20m in diameter. An unpolished stone axe was found at the site in 1893.

 

Hird Wood/Low Kingate stone circle

Path repairs in Skelghyll Woods

We've recently been working in Skelghyll Woods, just on the outskirts of Ambleside. We've been improving the drainage as over recent years the path has started to become steadily eroded in areas.

As there was little suitable rock on site we hand-picked the rock from the local quarry. We brought the rock in using our 4x4 and trailer then loaded it all into our mechanincal power barrows.

Loading up the power barrows

It wasn't long before we had distributed the rock around the woodland ready to build the drains.

Moving the rock to site

After all the materials were on site we set about constructing the stone drains and replacing a section of pipe. With these in place the path should now be much better prepared for any future heavy downpours.

One of the completed drains

Skelghyll Wood last year hit the headlines for being the home to The Grand Fir. The Grand Fir stands at 57.8m high, and is the tallest tree in Cumbria and also the tallest Grand Fir in England. It was planted in around 1860 as part of an arboretum at the Wansfell Holme country estate.

Specialist arboriculturists were called in to measure the tree and the it was all filmed with the help of Dreamtime Film. Here's the video that tells the tale...

We've been working hard on improving access around Skelghyll and we're also planning to create a new trail around the site that will be in place in the next few months. So this Springtime why not pen in a visit to see the tallest tree in Cumbria?