Perhaps I should thank Helios, the Greek sun god? Friday 23rd January was a quite glorious day on our part of Dartmoor, as the photos below show, although the sun faded just as we finished work, with perfect timing. When I got home, the rain set in – the weather forecast was quite accurate.
A section of the leat before the DPA volunteers started clearance work.
This part of the leat was previously cleared on 16th Sept. 2011 when there were no real “before” photos because it was then simply a no-go impenetrable mass of bramble and hawthorn with some gorse; even the animals did not get in here! The photograph above is a “before” scene taken before we started today, although behind the camera work was already well-under way.
After the scrub hawthorn was felled.
As with many of the scrub trees in the leat, they had survived grazing and trampling etc. by livestock and had grown as multi-stem forms, as seen in the next photograpg …..
The stumps of the scrub thorn tree that grew in the leat.
Removing errant scrub like this is often difficult because cut stems are held up by the inter-locking of the branches higher up.
Once the area was finished, it looked like this …..
After the volunteers had cleared the area.
Above – a Georgian archaeological treasure!
Once again I have to thank the volunteers for their efforts in preserving the old 1801 leat in as good a state as we can manage: these were Bill Radcliffe, Bob Bruce, Chris Francis, David Auty, Derek Collins, Elaine Viant, Helen Wilson, John Viant, Keith Ryan, Rachel Watson, Sylvia Hamilton and Val Barns – 12 in total.
Members of the DPA Conservation Team at work.
These last photographs are simply views of the work in progress.
Loppering out the remains of mainly brambles.
And finally …..
What shall we do next?
We haven’t seen a photograph of the cake lately! Thank you to Rachel for both the fruit cake and the lemon cake, I can say that both were excellent!
Just a reminder that these photos can be seen full-screen on many devices by clicking on the photo and pressing F11. Press F11 again and then the browser back-arrow to return to normal view.