Overflowing with good news and excitement 😊

It’s a good news week which is always nice 😊

Over at our Little Asby Common near Orton, a dream of over 20 years is finalised… we do think long term in the world of landscapes! When we bought Little Asby Common in 2003, there was no avoiding the eyesores caused by the overhead power lines as they marched up and over the fell.

Ninety years of campaigning for wires to go underground

Friends of the Lake District has worked throughout most of its history to reduce the impacts of such infrastructure whilst still allowing remote communities the benefit of power of course. Our research into the costings of undergrounding and lobbying paid off when the regulator Ofgem gave an allowance to electricity companies to put wires underground in national parks and protected landscapes, initially for visual reasons but more recently also for resilience reasons.

National Park extensions campaign pays off

So we had long hoped that wires on our own land at Little Asby could go underground, but as the allowance only covered designated landscapes and the common was not in a National Park, there was no hope of that. Until our work led to it being part of the Yorkshire Dales National Park in Aug 2016.

Trench digging begins

We have since worked with the National Park Authority and Electricity North West and now our dream is being realised. As we speak trenches are being dug near the common to take the new electricity wires and once this work is done, the task of getting the poles off the fell and limestone areas will begin. As with so much of our work, it will soon be what you don’t see that will show our work and reap the benefits, whoop….

First use of the new bridge

Monday was our Dam Mire workparty day, the first chance to enjoy the new bridge onto the extension land and get between both the old and new pieces of land without jumping the fence which has now gone.

We had a great gang of people full of energy and lots of sunshine to admire the stunning views. The task list included strimming the paths and removing bits of overhanging tree, giving the willow den a tidy up, repairing cross drains, cutting back brambles, moving fence posts and tackling a bulging boundary wall.

As well as enjoying the latest works on site, we have something else to look forward to. Our dedicated volunteer Rachel Pugh is gifting a rather different type of seat to us.

In 2020 and 2025 Rachel had cornea transplants which in her words: “have made everything I love the most in the mountains possible, and they have saved me from blindness. In short, they have transformed my life. Reflecting in the aftermath of the second stunningly successful operation by a brilliant team at the Royal Manchester Eye Hospital, I felt overcome by a gratitude I did not know how to deal with. I realised I needed to give something solid back.

“The idea of a drystone wall seat, at Dam Mire Wood in a place where your senses are bombarded by natural beauty – the loom of Blencathra, the cool of the grass under your feet, the smell of the aromatic herbs and the sounds of the birds, against the village of Threlkeld – seemed perfect. Here we could incorporate sensory aspects to allow people not as fortunate as me, to experience the landscape at first hand, without having to go far from the car park at Threlkeld. People who had never fallen in love with nature might actually do so, just by sitting in it. That awareness might help people to decide to look after it. And for that Manchester Eye Hospital team, it is a means of beckoning them out into an energising place in the knowledge that their skill, professionalism and sheer humanity is being celebrated by people like me, and that it is not ‘just a job’, it is changing lives.”

Contractor Dan hired a tracked dumper truck to move the stone from a nearby garden for us. We have been working with Rachel’s friend and professional dry stone waller Richard Staley to come up with a suitable design. We wanted a dry stone wall seat that would fit in with the surroundings, but also reflect Rachel’s eye experiences. So Richard will soon be building a semi circular seat, with a built in slate plinth to sit on with a eye shaped oriel opening in the back of the wall. The views will be stunning and we hope it will be an appreciated new and practical feature on site.

Dumper moving stone for Rachel's Seat, Dam Mire over the new bridge

As if all that was not exciting enough, we have even more positive news. We have just completed on the transfer of another 1.7ha of land near Threlkeld. This piece of land is further east, next to the A66 and comes with a really positive story.

In the last couple of years a developer sought planning permission to build houses on a green field site at the edge of the village in Threlkeld. This was unpopular with lots of local residents who thought the field should remain undeveloped, especially one of the nearest neighbours who would have had the outlook from their house wrecked.

The developers had to prove that the housing would be nutrient neutral, ie it would not put any more nutrients into the sewage system and impact on the River Derwent catchment. The only way they could do this was to purchase a field nearby that could be used to offset the nutrient load – in effect nutrient offsetting. This is fairly new legislation and is still being worked out, so the developers got fed up with delays and the land in Threlkeld was put up for sale.

The local resident stepped in and bought this field, saving it for the village. What she hadn’t realised was that she was also buying the piece of land further east that was set aside for nutrient offsetting. She had never even visited this piece of land and had no idea what to do with it.

The family approached Friends of the Lake District about gifting this land to us and we chatted about options for it that would do something positive for the landscape and nature. It could just have been sold for grazing land, but there was an opportunity to do something a bit more special and give something back to the Lake District and the family wanted to explore this.

Although this piece of land is small, it does connect with other habitats and our Trustees decided to accept this generous gift. The land has just become ours and over the next couple of years we will have lots of exciting new volunteer opportunities as we attempt to establish a new native woodland with public access.

The site is open to the fell and the popular path along the bottom of Blencathra so is an ideal spot to rest weary legs after a long climb. It’s early days yet but what a fantastic outcome for Threlkeld, two pieces of land saved and enhanced for nature by the generosity of a local person.

Dam Mire Wood Open Day

Staying with Threlkeld – date for the diary – Fri 18^th sept – we are planning an afternoon and evening open day with events and talks including an evening bat walk. Join us with bat expert Cath Johnson, learn all about bats, listen to them, and hopefully spot some of the rare ones we have on site. Look out for more details on our website in forthcoming months.

Hedgehog monitoring

Meanwhile, I know some of you are lucky enough to have hedgehogs in your garden. If you fancy helping the People’s Trust for Endangered Species monitor them, you can find out more info at : The National Hedgehog Monitoring Programme – People’s Trust for Endangered Species

Next Wednesday we are walling over at Mazonwath, Little Asby. Join us if you wish:

Mazonwath workparty