Leader Jo
A somewhat unusual task awaited the eight
volunteers who had signed up for a day's work at the Crickley
Hill Country Park near Cheltenham. Martin, the National Trust
Warden responsible for the park, told us that the Belted Galloway
cattle that are often put to graze the grassy scarp had broken
through the boundary fence and entered adjacent farm fields. In
consequence they were temporarily removed until a stock proof
barrier could be constructed. However, before the fencing contractor
could come the old post and wire fence had to be removed. This
was our job for the day.
Originally a drystone wall bound the site and in an ideal world
a new one would have been built but for economic reasons this
was ruled out. The weather was absolutely perfect, warm sunny
spells with a few white puffy clouds to provide occasional shade
and in the available time we removed many metres of old fence
and the decaying posts. Also where the wall had collapsed we stacked
the fallen stone neatly out of the way. Although we didn't reach
the far end of the site we made a big impact on the job.
