Uncategorized – Heggs-Castle Renaturing Project

The first rose and an answer.

A meeting on The Cluster with DEFRA earlier today about the uplands, yielded the first Primrose of the year (along with some rather fine Cartilage lichen). AND FINALLY… The answer to the question in the last blog… they all contain Yorkshire rivers in their names! Martin WW

Don Bradman, Midge Ure and A E Houseman.

Greetings from a chilly but bright Swaledale. It’s been some time, but I felt an update on what has been happening recently may not be the worst idea. We have had quite a few meetings to move forward our NFM (Natural Flood Management) work on the Cluster. We have written about NFM before and haveContinue reading “Don Bradman, Midge Ure and A E Houseman.”

Right tree, right place

Since forming in 2019, we’ve focused much of our efforts on woodland, scrub and hedgerow creation, putting each project through a careful consultation and design process, to ensure we’re planting only the most suitable areas, using only the most suitable species mix. Yes, we love trees, but only in the right place: Our long-term visionContinue reading “Right tree, right place”

Remember me?

Hello, good afternoon and welcome. It has been a while since a new blog post has appeared and a lot longer since I’ve posted one. Due to unexpected and expected personal circumstances I have been very busy for the last 18 months and until the last week or two have only visited The Cluster aContinue reading “Remember me?”

Marvellous mud

If you go down to the cluster today you’re in for a big surprise… Our flood plain has been transformed by a series of scrapes and bunds — the final intervention in this year’s series of natural flood management works. Scrapes and bunds help by temporarily storing rain and surface water — thereby increasing theContinue reading “Marvellous mud”

Mission tree planting successful

A committed team of professional planters has been working in all weathers since the start of December to make our new 32ha woodland creation a reality. Battling on through gales, driving rain – and a few glorious days of sunshine – on the exposed slopes of Fremington Edge, they have succeeded in getting all 33,630Continue reading “Mission tree planting successful”

Gimme Shelter(s)

Storm Otto gave us 60mph winds just 24 hours before our planned volunteer day to remove the last of the redundant shelters from the Castle end of the Cluster. Thankfully (for us) Otto had left for Denmark and we had a bright and warm morning for our planned task. Sadly only three of the fiveContinue reading “Gimme Shelter(s)”

Woolly jumpers

You may remember that last winter we planted a lot of willow to try and stop some of The Cluster ending up in the North Sea? See here…https://heggscastlecluster.org/2022/03/11/how-was-your-day/ After the floods three years ago, a large land slip started which with every proceeding flood caused more to be washed into the Arkle and more landContinue reading “Woolly jumpers”

A little rain must fall…

But why does it have to be 5 1/2 inches in just over three hours? Three years ago today we had a bit of a shower which caused huge amounts of damage to both The Cluster and the surrounding area. TV crews flooded in (sorry) to the area to document and incorrectly report what wasContinue reading “A little rain must fall…”

A moist update.

It rained! Seriously. It did. Honest! It was therefore a bit muddy as we removed another few hundred meters of wire and posts from the Castle end of The Cluster. This fencing was erected some years ago to keep stock out of the alder woodland but floods and erosion had severely damaged it to theContinue reading “A moist update.”