Human ‘beavers’ are needed to volunteer for some brook restoration work,
They will take part in a weekend work party on Saturday November 20 from 9.45am to about 3.30pm, although you can stay as long as you wish.
Walcot Estate has agreed to work with Langdyke and our John Clare Countryside partners on restoring a length of the White Water Brook and its historical floodplain.
The brook, pictured above, was straightened and made deeper in the 19th Century to drain the floodplain for agricultural use. The full restoration work aims to raise the bed of the “hidden” brook, increasing the water level and therefore allowing it to reconnect with the surrounding landscape.
As a first step the work party will look to clear away some of the scrub lining the banks and use the larger cross sections of wood to build some leaky dams.
Organiser David Alvey said: “Dependent on numbers of volunteers we also hope to dig some “test pits” in the floodplain to better understand the depth of top soil and what lies underneath in key places.
“This is a rare opportunity to visit an area of the John Clare Countryside not generally open to public access and see a different form of landscape for the John Clare Countryside as this brook lies in a definite valley.”
The plan is to meet at the barn at Etton Maxey at 9:45am to collect tools and share cars to access the site which lies between Southorpe and the A1.
Please do let us know you are coming so we can plan the required tools and tasks by booking on Eventbrite here
David added: “I look forward to seeing you on the day and encourage you to participate in the very first steps of this exciting project to restore a natural Limestone (analogous to Chalk) stream within the John Clare Countryside.”
You can contact David on david.alvey@langdyke.org.uk if you have any questions.