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Summer brings an increase in visitors to the parkland and for us as rangers a change of pace in regard to what we are able to do; we are on what industry would term ‘reduced hours’. Until almost the end of August all of our activity is low key maintenance…
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The Postmen & Postwomen of the Parkland. Over the past few years as a group of volunteers, we have been renewing and replacing way-marker posts and signs in order to make the walks in the parkland easier to follow. In fact we have been doing this so frequently we have…
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Much of the work we do as ranger volunteers is related to helping to maintain the woodland. Throughout the parkland there are numerous ancient and veteran trees, interestingly all have been tagged and their positions recorded in recent times; when looking at old maps of the estate there is evidence…
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The Lime Avenue running through the centre of West Park was planted in about 1960. The individual trees stand seven meters apart and throughout the summer attract the bees from nearby hives. Over the last few years a number of these trees have become diseased and one by one they…
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For me the parkland at croft castle is a special place, there are so many different aspects to the landscape, different environments, all to be found within the boundary of the parkland. It is however quite special for many others too. The Parkland’s significance as ‘special’ is indicated by two…
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Pokehouse wood is at the far western end of the estate and getting there and back to the Castle is a distance of about 5½ miles. The first couple of miles are quite easy going, mostly along an asphalt forest track. Not long after leaving the main track the route…
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Not long after I began my volunteering as a ‘Ranger’; (I was never too sure about the name, it sounded a bit too American but then maybe it’s better than the original name we had i.e. ‘warden’ a name that prison officers were once called.) anyway, I was given a map…
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The last week of January saw us all planting trees up in Croft Wood. With almost 600 trees to plant out we were in on three consecutive days in an attempt to finish the job. There is a quite specific map of what has to be planted and where. If…
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This was initially an education area Children were introduced to creatures that could be found in the woodland Old tree trunks were piled up as habitat for insects & bugs The area was small but needed regular maintenance There was room however to expand but it was very overgrown. Once…
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I am helping, along with other volunteers, to clear the dense overgrowth of Hawthorne, Blackthorn, Bracken, Nettle & Brambles that have grown up on the side of the south facing rampart and in the ditch below over the last couple of decades. We began work in October 2015 and we will…
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