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Cambridge Botanic Gardens task - 18th November
Not a National Trust site, but never-the-less we decided to spend a day at Cambridge Botanic Gardens
preparing the schools area areas for planting, laying a slab base for tool stores, clearing an
entrance path and covering with wood chippings.

The completed entrance to the schools area

(Photo: Roger) Left: prepared garden area ................... (Photo: Roger) Right: slab laying under way

Wimpole a war weekend - 29th & 30th September

A somewhat different task to usual, helping at a 1940's "Wimpole at War" themed weekend.
Alison and Val dressed up as Land Army Girls - read Alisons article (with pin ups!) in our Winter 2007 newsletter.

Wimpole fence dismantling - 23rd September 2007
[Did you know that Wimpole is the birthplace of the British Library?
or that during WW11 the South Avenue at Wimpole Hall was home to 323 Bomb Squadron?
Wimpole Website is a mine of information, photos and facts - visit Wimpole Website here]

Seven volunteers and a very warm late summers day made this a very enjoyable, all be it hard, working task.
Our mission, which we accepted, was to remove the delapidated fence and gateway you can see to
the right in the photo below (Photo: Tom).

To begin, the necessary and important tools and safety talk. Next came removal of the barbed wire, followed by
the mesh wire then removal of the timber rails and uprights. The final task was to remove any nails from the
timber and stack onto pallets.


(Photo: Roger) Left: preps for safety talk, Saras' halo looks a bit blurred and errr whats that! Toms' got his tea flask out already!
(Photo: Tom) Right: Joan gets to work


(Photo: Roger) Left: stacking de-nailed timber .... (Photo: Roger) Right: Job done, well almost..a few posts needed mechanical help to extract!

We finished around 4 o'clock and retired to the tea room for a well earned cuppa and a very tasty cream tea.

Wimpole bat hibernation site - 12th August 2007
[Thanks to Val W. for providing the words and Clare T. for the photos this week]

Bat hibernation site update:
A survey of the site on Sunday 20th January found
at least 10 bats in hibernation, though due to the un-seasonally warmer weather some were
becoming active. Two types were found, Daubenton and I think Natterer.
To find out more about bats and how to make your own bat box, the Norfolk Bat Group
website is an excellent resource.

When nine of us turned up at Wimpole to work with Simon at a bat hibernation site we all imagined we would be
tramping off into a far flung corner of the estate in amongst trees, hedges and grass. Simon said he would meet
us at the front of the house with the Land Rover and trailer we didn’t think too much of it either.
But then we turned towards the house itself and went to the west end of it – very puzzling.
Then Simon opened a window just 4 feet off the ground – and that was our way into the hibernation site!
To find out more about bats and how to make your own bat box, the Norfolk Bat Group
website is an excellent resource.

(Photo: Clare) Left: how not to exit the hibernation site .... (Photo: Roger) Right: Neil shows the correct exit procedure

(Photo: Clare) Left: volunteers posing ... sorry, working (safely!) ... (Photo: Roger) Right: Two old bats attempting entry...

He pushed a ladder in through the window and went in after it, and when that was set up we were told that our job for
the day was to remove all the debris (mostly hardcore) from the area underground. Apparently it had been an
area created when a conservatory had been built on the side of Wimpole Hall to house services for the conservatory,
including a boiler room. The group split into two with half inside doing clearing of debris and the other half transporting
the debris from the window to the trailer. We had a set up chain gangs both underground and outside to get buckets
of hardcore out to the trailer and by lunchtime we had more or less done the clearing.

(Photo: Clare) Left: prepared bricks stacked to make hibernation cavities .. (Photo: Roger) Right: more bricks for hanging hibernation sites

(Photo: Roger) Left/centre/right: more stacked bricks, hanging bricks and wooden hanging boxes for hibernation sites

In the afternoon we set up a new hibernation area for the bats. We collected old bricks from Cobs Wood Lane;
Simon then showed us how to knock out the end of the brick with a hammer. The idea was that if the bricks
were stacked with their surface with the largest surface area horizontal then the bats could get into
the dip (it's called a frog Val!!) in the brick through the end that had been removed.

(Photos: Clare) Left: Neil prepares bricks ................. Right: Cory (left) grovelling for food ... no chance ...

It was an interesting and different task and as ever nowadays we were ably assisted by Simon’s dog Cory.
Simon will let us know what they find when they check the habitat in the next few months.

(Photo: Roger) Bat house builders take a tea break....

Anglesey task clearing river bank - 29th July 2007

A day clearing nettles and other weeds from the river bank leading to Lode mill.

Left: clearing in progress...........Right: job finished - Lode Mill in the background.

Left: another view of the cleared river bank.........Right: a family of swans visits, mum, dad and five cygnets.

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