Managing the Landscape

Over the past few weeks diggers and dump trucks have been trundling down the fields at Strickley. There’s no new buildings secretly being constructed, but we’ve been making use of a necessary evil. As you may know we are plagued by pipelines and cables from every utility company you can think of, and some you probably never thought about. It all started in the 1890’s when Manchester Waterworks Corporation built the Thirlmere Aqueduct to take water from Thirlmere to Manchester. This passes through Strickley – click here to read what Henry’s Dad wrote about it. Since the 1980’s we’ve had gas pipes, pylons, more pylons, fibre optic cable and water (again). None of this has been trouble free, and some companies are easier to deal with than others. On the Strickley website there are photographs of the disruption caused by some of these intrusions.
The latest reason to dig up yet more meadows was National Grid’s necessity to install a souped up power line for Virgin’s High Speed Trains. This has meant that the fields on the east side of the road have been sliced up to provide the necessary working width. There is enough material for several Blog posts on the disruption caused by all of this. So watch this space.
However, back to where I started. The contractors laid out temporary roads for their vehicles, and crossing tracks for us to get stock and machinery through to the grass beyond. Now that the work is almost complete, the last thing to do is reinstatement. We are doing our own reseeding (the whole project has been complicated by our organic status), but the stone had to be removed. We’ve taken all the stone from our section of workings and used it to make a weather proof track from what is known as “The Tractor Bridge” up to Over Bleaze



Our contractors dug out the track and filled in and compacted the stone. It’s now dried out (it was very wet when we first started) and will prevent damage to the grass by stock and machinery. The final touch is a set of double wooden gates into the lane from The Mires (on order) to replace the rather ramshackle metal gate farther down the lane.
Today I was taken on a whistle stop tour of what’s been happening at home this week – using the new track as a starting point. Fine weather is good – but it does have its drawbacks. While the good weather is here we must crack on and get all the field work completed. We’re reseeding two fields this spring ( as well as the reinstatement of the fields cut through by National Grid). Last August we planned to sow a field of oats and ploughed Bottom Field. But that was the last of the good weather and a wet summer slipped into a wet autumn and the plan was abandoned. We’re now back on track and three fields have been ploughed and prepared – as I said in another post -

We plough the field
We pick stones
We disc the field
We pick stones
We level the field
We pick stones
We scatter the good seed on the land
We pick stones
We roll the field









The two fields of grass are now just waiting of the gentle rain to fall. The other field still is a bit stony (we’re very good at growing stones) and after a bit more stone picking it will be sown with the oats from last year, then underssown with grass.














There’s pebbles, stones, rocks and then boulders – all in one field. But now heaped up as a testament to the back breaking work.









..but ..

More stones still to pick!

I know that has been a long rambling post, for which I apologise. But once started it’s hard to stop.

And - having seen the way the photographs are postioned on the Blog on the web - Sorry!

Not quite how I intended the layout. Blogger does it in it's own inimitable style.