Saturday, 21st January 2023: litterpicking and improving the path by Adel Beck

A beautiful morning, but – By Gum – it was cold first thing! It took your correspondent 20 minutes to scrape the ice off the car windows – including inside! Nevertheless, eleven Friends turned out for this morning’s work party. Five of us litterpicking. and the rest of us path clearing. And it was a lovely day for working in the woods.

The litter pickers picked up about six bags of rubbish on Buckstone Road, the Village Green, Crag Lane, the Hospice Woodland and on the track down to the cricket pavilion.

For the path clearers the objective this morning was to improve the path running alongside Adel Beck. Historically, there has been a path by the beck on the Alwoodley side all the way from Stairfoot Lane bridge down to the Spring Hill bridge, just downhill from the Slabbering Baby. However, in recent years the path has become overgrown and muddy and its route unclear at the halfway point, in the region of Adel Bog. Our focus today was to work on the path from Spring Hill bridge up to the midway point.

Near Spring Hill bridge, the path had been eroded away by the beck, making it a bit hazardous, as can be seen in the photograph above. One of our first jobs was therefore to move the route of the path further away from the stream and remove brambles and a large sapling which was growing across the path.

The main things to tackle today were brambles and holly which were making the path very narrow – even before the growing season starts again.

In the space of two hours we were able to accomplish our aims, though there is still a lot to do – principally to improve the muddy sections of the path and to improve way marking.

The two photographs show the difference made in the vicinity of Spring Hill bridge. The tree on the left can just be seen in the “before” photograph though it is obscured by the brambles which we removed. You can also see to the right of the tree the stump of the large sapling which we removed because it was growing across the path.

Another satisfying and successful morning for the Friends of Adel Woods!