Witchford Village Society Open Spaces Group
Welcome to the web page for the Witchford Village Society Open
Spaces Group. You can find out more about the group in the section
below. Diary dates for the activities that we organise are on the What's On
page.
Volunteers are very welcome at all Open Spaces Group and Woodland Group events. For more information about the Open Spaces Group contact Richard Braund on 665222 (e-mail [email protected]).
Latest Updates
July 2013
A new pond for Witchford
At the end of June the plan for a new pond near Cathedral View Park on Manor Road finally came to fruition. A pond was shown on the site in early ordnance survey maps but it was filled in in 1975, when there was a reference in the parish council minutes to 'New Pond', so this is the name by which the new pond will be known The ground was cleared in December 2010 as the first stage in re-creating the pond, to a plan drawn up by Witchford scouts. However, the site is traversed by an 11 kV overhead powerline, and a check of services revealed the presence of underground electricity cables. Locating the underground cables and obtaining the approval of the power services company to carry out the work was a lengthy process only completed recently.
The current work of excavating for the pond has been a parish council-led operation, thanks to the efforts of Cllrs Jellicoe and Palmer, supported by Witchford scouts and the Open Spaces Group, and aided by the loan of a dumper from Carl Goodjohn. In the autumn the scouts and the OSG will work together to plant up and seed the pond surrounds with native trees, flowers, rushes, sedges, and reeds to make it more attractive to wildlife such as amphibians, dragonflies and breeding birds, and during the winter we expect the pond to fill with water.
Sandpit Drove Conservation Area
The wildflower meadow in the Sandpit Drove is not faring as well this year as last. We have few of the annual weeds that plagued us last year, and the perennial weeds such as nettle, dock and burdock have not been growing too profusely, and hand weeding by volunteers in June has helped to keep them under control. However the high fertility of the soil over much of the meadow has meant that coarse grasses predominate and there are fewer wildflowers. That said, we saw a number of cowslips earlier in the season, and there are now a good many clover, buttercups, melilot, oxe-eye daisy and yellow rattle, a plant that parasitises the roots of grasses. This probably means a change of approach next year, undertaking a cut in early May to keep the grasses down.
On 17 July we shall hold an evening wildlife walk along Sandpit Drove, to look at the pond (where this season moorhens bred, producing two young) and the meadow, possibly to see bats foraging, and if we are lucky, a barn owl hunting. We shall finish at the memorial bench by the pond for nibbles and liquid refreshment (bring your own!).
Millennium Wood
In June the Woodland Group held its annual Meadow Mow, when as usual the Witchford scouts provided bacon baps to enjoy after cutting and raking the grass. A high turnout of scouts and OSG helpers also cleared the entrance path of nettles and trimmed the boundary hedge.
Volunteers are very welcome at all Open Spaces Group and Woodland Group events. For more information about the Open Spaces Group contact Richard Braund on 665222 (e-mail [email protected])
About the Open Spaces Group
The Background
The Witchford Village Society Open Spaces Group (OSG) consists of volunteers from Witchford working for conservation and enhancing access to the countryside. The members meet every two months to plan activities, and around once a month to carry out maintenance on the rights of way, manage open spaces and lead guided walks. The OSG is associated to the Witchford Village Society but operates independently, working closely with the parish council and a number of organisations within the village.
Rights of Way
Since our founding in 1989 we have helped to open all the rights of way in Witchford that were blocked, and with the county council we achieved the reopening of the bridlepath across the old Witchford airfield, which had been stopped up since World War II. We placed and continue to replace waymarkers and waymarker posts, and in conjunction with the parish and county councils maintain the paths as far as possible in good condition. We also arrange and lead a number of guided walks on the RoW throughout the year.
Our aim in maintaining and waymarking the routes and conducting guided walks is to encourage people to venture out into the countryside and enjoy the experience. Further encouragement is provided through the Witchford Walks leaflet, which describes and illustrates several walks in the village. It was prepared by Witchford resident Terry King and the parish council in 2010. Copies are available at Witchford Post Office or from the Parish Clerk.
Sandpit Drove Conservation Area
In 2005, with the co-operation of the parish and county councils, the OSG set up the Sandpit Drove Conservation Area, in a part of Byway 11 adjacent to Witchford Village College. The conservation area covers an area of around 1 ha, and contains a pond restored in 1992, a strip of scrub and elm-dominated woodland, and meadow, hedgerows and individual trees. A circular path through woodland and meadow, named Sparrowhawk Way after the sparrowhawks that bred in the woodland, was opened by local MP James Paice. A management plan for the Conservation Area was drawn up by the OSG, and management activities are undertaken on the site 2 - 3 times a year to enhance its conservation value and maintain public access. The activities include tree planting, clearing ditches, grass cutting, litter picking, pond maintenance, and installing bird and bat boxes (the last with Witchford scouts who have made many of the boxes).
In 2011 we prepared and sowed a wildflower meadow in Sandpit Drove, with funding from the Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Biodiversity Project Fund and the parish council. The grasses and flowers germinated in the spring and summer of 2012, and following a good deal of weeding and selective cutting as the summer progressed we succeeded in achieving a very attractive meadow. Further management in the autumn including reseeding some areas we expect will deliver even better results in 2013 and beyond.
Witchford Millennium Wood
The Millennium Wood is a site of 0.3 ha owned by the parish on the south side of Main Street. It was planted in 1999, and subsequently the Woodland Group was set up by the parish council to manage the wood on its behalf. It meets twice yearly to propose the management programme for the next six months, and then implements the management activities. The OSG is a member organisation of the Woodland Group, and most active individuals on the Woodland Group are also part of the OSG.
About one third of the site was left as meadow. This is cut annually in June and the hay raked off and stacked. Native hedging was planted in 2000 along the boundaries, and hedgerows were established by trimming over a number of years. The wood is beginning to mature as the canopy closes over, and current management is focussed on coppicing, and shrub and woodland flora planting.
Access and information about the wood was improved in 20ll when an information board was installed and a new public footpath created to provide a second entrance on the wood's east boundary. In 2012 a picnic table was installed by the parish council
The Old Recreation Ground
The Old Recreation Ground is a 1 ha (2 ½ acre) parcel of land that was awarded to Witchford parish as a result of the Inclosure Act 1861, at the time of the draining of Grunty Fen. The award for ‘The Witchford Recreation Ground’ refers to ‘that piece or parcel of Land numbered 236 on the said map…to be held in trust as a place for Exercise and Recreation for the Inhabitants of the said Parish and neighbourhood’. It is situated to the west of Grunty Fen Road on the north side of the catchwater drain, around 500 m from Main Street.
There was a proposal in 1942 to sell the land owing to its ‘unsuitability for recreation purposes’, but luckily the sale did not happen and the Old Rec is still owned by the parish, although it has been let for herbage for at least the last 40 years. Following the award to the OSG of a £1000 grant in 2007 from the Conservation Foundation, with the co-operation of the tenant farmer we restored an old farm pond, planted a boundary hedge and amenity trees (with Witchford Pre-school), and provided an oak sleeper picnic table and bench for the benefit of visitors and users of the public footpath that passes through.
In October 2012 however, an opportunity arose permitting the Old Rec to fulfil the original purpose for which it was awarded to Witchford more than 150 years ago, namely for exercise and recreation. The herbage lease lapsed and the parish council asked the OSG to put forward proposals for the management of the Old Rec, potentially along the lines of setting up a community orchard with provision for taking hay to provide some revenue to help towards maintenance.
Following public consultation the OSG put outline proposals to the parish council in November 2012, which after discussion and revision were approved. The plan is to establish a community orchard initially with 60 local varieties of apple, pear, plum and cherry trees to be purchased from the East of England Apples and Orchards Project for planting by Witchford residents. The grass around and between the trees will be cut for hay. The parish council has allocated £600 of funding, and in December 2012 an application for external funding made by the Open Spaces Group to the Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Biodiversity Project Fund was approved. This means that approximately £1000 of funding is available, most of which has been allocated to the purchase of the trees. The planting day has been scheduled for Sunday 24 February 2013, when we hope as many residents as possible will participate.
The planting will just be the start of a long process of managing the orchard as a community project, directed by the Open Spaces Group in conjunction with the parish council and the local farmer who will cut the grass for hay and maintain the hedges and ditches. The orchard will provide apples, pears, plums and cherries through the summer and autumn, as well as habitats for a diverse range of wildlife and flora.
Anyone with ideas or views on the community orchard and the use of the Old Rec should contact the Open Spaces Group or the parish clerk.
Contacts
Volunteers are very welcome at all Open Spaces Group and Woodland Group events. For more information about the Open Spaces Group contact Richard Braund on 01353 665222 (e-mail [email protected]).