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

Wall repairs and deer exclosure at High Close estate

Since the new year, we've come down from the upper fells and have started doing some estate work around the valley.

Our first job was to repair a couple of sections of dry stone wall at Low Wood, on the High Close estate just outside Grasmere.

 Section 1 before starting work

With the wall keeping livestock out of Low Wood, it was important that the gaps were repaired quickly to prevent sheep from entering the woodland. This helps both keep the tenant farmer happy and also stops sheep entering the woodland and nibbling away at early woodland flowers such as Snowdrops and Lesser Celandine.

 Section 1 after repairs

As a small Ash tree was growing close to the wall, and was likely the cause of it falling down, we decided that the tree should be removed to prevent any further damage.

 Rear of Section 1 during work

Trees growing close to a dry stone wall can often destabilise it, especially during strong winds, either by brushing against the wall and loosening stones or by the root plate moving and damaging the wall from below.

 Rear of Section 1 after, with tree stump in foreground

Removing trees like this can also be beneficial by allowing more light into the woodland, which helps woodland flowers to flourish and also gives other trees more space to grow.

 Section 2 before starting work

The second section that we worked on was more pre-emptive as it had started to lose stones from half way down the wall and would likely collapse in the short term. The wall was stripped back beyond the area of collapse to where the wall was more stable and  repaired in the usual manner. Both wall gaps took roughly a day to repair.

 Section 2 after repairs

Our next job was to build a deer exclosure in a small woodland on the edge of Loughrigg Common. The area, known as Billy Plantation, had recently been thinned and as a bit of a trial we've put up a couple of deer exclosures to see how the woodland develops without any grazing pressure. If the trials go well we may look into stock proofing the whole plantation at a later date.

Erecting the deer fence on Loughrigg

Tree planting in Grasmere and peat bog restoration work in Ullswater

It's been a busy few weeks since our last post so here's a taster of what we've been up to.
        

Earlier on, in mid-February, we spent a week tree planting on the slopes of Helm Crag. The work was funded by Natural England. We planted 1800 scrub woodland species over an area of 6 hectares, working alongside other National Trust staff and assisted by some of the Fix the Fells volunteers.

As the trees develop, they will help stabilise the soil and reduce rainwater runoff. They will also provide a valuable habitat for birds, such as Tree Pipit and Yellowhammer, mammals and insects.

You can read in more detail about the work on the Central and East Lakes Rangers blog... here, so here are just a selection photos of the work over a very wintery week.

Having a quick debrief on the first day

Planting out the trees

Looking towards Dunnmail Raise on the last day

Later on in the month we spent a day carrying out some peat bog restoration work up on Matterdale Common with the Ullswater team and staff from Cumbria Wildlife Trust.

Over 70 per cent of peatlands in England are in a damaged state, often due to drainage, overgrazing, forestry or regular burning. This damage prevents the peat remaining waterlogged, causing plants to die off. Without vegetation cover, bare areas of peat are formed which rapidly erode. This damage can be repaired by revegetating and blocking drains to help raise the water table. 

The project has been overseen by Cumbria Wildlife Trust who've used digger contractors to do the main bulk of the work, but as a member of the Cumbria Peat Partnership we were eager to lend a hand with areas that couldn't be done with machinery.

Our main job was to plant heather on the bare areas of peat to help speed up the regeneration process.

 Heather plants ready to be planted out

So we took the trays of heather out into one of the two stock excluded areas on Matterdale Common and planted up in the barest patches.

Planting out the heather 

Areas of peat that have eroded (often as a result of grazing, historical peat cutting and water damage) may form steep banks, known as hags. These hags continue to erode, due to water flow and wind damage, forming large areas of bare peat that plants struggle to survive on.

By reprofiling the banks to an angle of around thirty degrees it gives the heather seedlings a much better chance to flourish. Many of the hags have been removed using the diggers but we were able to get to a few areas that the diggers couldn't reach and to also work on some of the smaller hags.

 Grading one of the peat hags

You can see the area where we were working in the photograph below and also the difference between the grazed and ungrazed areas. The area in the distance was fenced off about 10 years ago allowing heather and other peatland plants to return, this should further improve following the recent work.

Bundles of heather used for blocking drainage

You can learn more about peatland restoration on the Cumbria Wildlife Trust website... here.

Woodland boundary repairs in Ullswater

After finishing our path repair work up at Hole in the Wall we've as usual, for the time of year, concentrated on working in the valley bottoms, so far mostly around Langdale and Ullswater.

Since the new year our main work has been carrying out repairs to a woodland boundary in Ullswater. The plantation where we've been working has been recently thinned which will allow more space for selected trees to develop and let more light get through to the woodland floor. This in turn should lead to an increase in woodland flowers and encourage a wider range of other species to use the woodland.

 Lower wall before repair

The work has consisted of two dry stone wall gaps on the east side of the lake below Place Fell. The lower gap had extremely tricky access with the wall being on top of a steep rocky slope which also meant a lot of carrying rock back up the hill before we could start.

 Lower wall after repair

The upper wall, although easier to access, was a much larger job and the stone was a lot more challenging being smaller and irregular.

 Upper wall before repair (bottom side)

 Upper wall after repair (bottom side)

We soon had both walls up and they will now hopefully last a good few years before being in need of any more repair.

 Upper wall before repair (top side)

To allow woodland plants to flourish the woodland ideally needs to be stock-proof. So the final job once we'd finished the walling was to reattach the wall-top-fence to make it difficult for both sheep and deer to gain access.

 Attaching the wall-top-fence to the upper wall after repairs

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?