A nice morning, and a good turnout of nine Friends of Adel Woods.
This was an extra “work party” for the specific purpose of repairing the steps leading down from the Stairfoot Lane car park to Adel Beck, and unblocking the drainage pipe under Crag Lane near the picnic area.
However, three Friends came to litterpick and between them filled four bags of litter. A wonderful achievement!
The Stairfoot Lane steps
The steps were constructed by the British Trust for Conservation Volunteers in February 2011. Before that, the traveller had to negotiate a rather steep and muddy bank if walking between the stream and Crag Lane. However, it is a public footpath and so Leeds City Council paid for the work to be done. In October 2012, Friends of Adel Woods added five further steps at the top so there are now thirty six. Sometime in 2013 we replaced the original wooden pegs with iron ones.
Maintaining the steps something we have to do regularly as mud is washed onto the steps when it rains, leaves fall onto the steps each Autumn, and the wooden risers rot. In addition, the local moles like to create mole hills on the steps!
Today, the steps were well on their way to returning to being a steep, muddy slope, and five of the risers needed to be replaced. Two or three more will need to be replaced in a year or so.
Amazingly, the six of us working on this task were able to complete the work, including levelling off all the steps, in an hour and a quarter!
We must have done well because a user of the steps emailed FOAW to tell us that we had done an amazing job – which is always nice to hear.
The drainage pipe under Crag Lane
Until February 2011, Crag Lane near the picnic area used to turn into a quagmire every time it rained as can be seen in the photograph above. In February 2011 Steve Joul led a team of FOAW volunteers in placing a drainage pipe in the offending area and building up the path using hardcore provided by Leeds City Council.
The path is completely transformed as a result of that work, but the pipe needs to be unblocked a couple of times a year.
As one of our volunteers remarked: “I love work: I could watch someone doing it all day!”
Friends of Adel Woods were formed in 2009 to help maintain Adel Woods and encourage people to enjoy them. We meet one morning a month to carry out various jobs, and we also put on educational events – this coming weekend we are putting on a Fungal Foray.
If you would like to take part in our activities, get in touch by leaving a comment on our website.
Friends of Adel Woods 