We met Zoe at the Marton Arms and she led us up through three fields to the wood. It was in a very narrow gill.
She explained that the road next to her house used to flood during very wet conditions. The Council had altered the drains beside the road but the road continued to flood - in fact it got worse.
Finally the people near the road formed a group and got permission from the farmer and built some leaky dams.
I was intrigued to see these dams.
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| The first part of the wood going upstream was in an area where sheep could (if allowed) have access. |
We then went through a gate and here there was no access for farm animals.
Zoe explained how how they did nearly all the work themselves. They paid an experienced dam builder to come and show them how to do it and provide some of the materials. This was shortly before Covid.
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The banks got steeper and bramblier. We had to keep criss-crossing the stream - fine for Zoe and I in wellies, but a challenge for the other two in hiking footwear.
Finally as it got even steeper and bramblier we decided to climb out of the wooded gill. Once outside I saw that we had only walked up a third of the gill.. and the leaky dams continued upwards. -
I looked at the lichens on the gate and wall where we had emerged from the gill.
After I got home I noticed this tiny frilly yellow lichen in a photo. I think it is Xanthoria ucrainica, but it could be Candelaria concolor. I wish I had done a chemical test whilst I was there - It is a long way to go back just to see whether KOH will make it turn red.
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| We only found one waxcap in the whole walk - on a bank near the stream |
Later Zoe showed us the culvert in the village where the stream went under some houses. I am not surprised the culvert could not take all the water under flash flood conditions. Graphs show that we have increasingly more days with a very high rain fall than we used to.
Later she showed where the stream came out and flowed past the houses.
She says that since the dams were built the road has not flooded.
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| Stream emerging form the culvert |
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| Recuperating in the Marton Arms |
