Eastern Team
Mickleden makeover
September 2011 by Ade Mills
Over the last month we've continued to replace the old section of pitching at Mickleden, making it more user-friendly by re-aligning the path, adding some bends and reducing the height of the steps. By adding a series of bends, rather than taking a more direct route, the gradient is much reduced making it easier to walk down.
With the path being on such a steep slope, during heavy rain there is a lot of surface water that if alone would run straight down the path and likely cause damage. To help address this problem, we arranged a day with the Fix the Fells volunteers to build a turf drain across the slope. This feeds the rainwater into a stone drain that is built into the path, which then sheds it out of the way.
(Picture: Fix the Fells volunteers building a turf drain)
With all the pitching now completed and the drains in place, we got on with landscaping the newly built path to help it blend in with its surroundings.
Firstly we roughed up the edges of the path with left over stone to make things look a bit more natural and also to encourage people not to wander off the path and create another erosion problem.
(Picture: Landscaping the path to reduce short-cutting)
Flat sections off the path were also made less attractive to walk on by digging holes and putting in smaller stones, which had been dug out while replacing the path. These stones were covered over with the soil that had been removed from the hole and the turf placed back on top, to create bumpy areas. This also helps to tidy up the area, rather than leaving a lot of left-over waste material around the worksite.
Once this was done we covered over much of the soil that had been dug out with turfs, and re-seed, and fertilized the whole area around the path and between the pitching. Though it's a little late in the season there's still a good chance that much of the seed will lay dormant over winter and sprout next spring. We'll come back and check its progress in 2012 and if required put more seed down over the next couple of years.
(Picture: The completed section of path)
Providing that most of the seed germinates, by this time next year you'll hardly know that that the original route ever existed.
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