Army Foundation College Volunteers

The Friends of Hell Wath would like to extend their thanks all the Army Cadets who volunteered to help out on Hell Wath over the weekend of 22nd/23rd April and to the FOHW volunteers who came along (especially on a very wet Saturday) to support the work being undertaken.

The platoon activities included:
Fencing
Working with the Skell Valley Project Ranger, chestnut paling fencing was installed to close gaps in the hedgerow between Ripon Panthers football fields. This replaced broken wire fencing and is part of a hedgerow restoration project. Additional planting of native hedgerow species will take place in the Autumn to thicken up the hedge and provide an important habitat for birds and small mammals.
Hell Wath Lane Entrance
Soil was dug out and replaced with crushed limestone to improve one of the muddy entrances from Hell Lane car park. This stone is currently ‘settling in’ and additional stone will be laid in due course to level this path and also to improve the other entrance from the car park.
Wildflower Seeding
Several sections of upper meadow have been dug over to provide trial areas for wildflower growth. Four pairs of 10mx2m sections have been dug over. One section of each pair has been seeded with carefully sourced native wildflower species, the other section has been left to see if dormant wildflower seeds can be encouraged to grow. All the sections will be monitored over the coming year – it will be interesting to see what happens !
Molehill Seeding
Molehills provide open areas of soil and some of these were seeded with carefully sourced wildflower seeds to see if these can provide a good opportunity for increasing wildflower diversity across the meadows.
Hell Wath Track
Several sections of the track running along from Hell Wath Cottage were cleared of surface mud and leaf debris to improve the walking surface.