Volunteers restoring Jonesborough forest
Around 20 – 30 years ago the Jonesborough community planted up an area of land behind the Pastoral centre with a range of deciduous trees. Over time the area developed into a lovely forest with lovely stone lined paths and picnic benches. The local primary school also put in a pond.
Since then the forest became overgrown and over run with invasive species such as Gorse and Cherry Laurel. The paths disappeared under a mat of brambles and ivy and the pond floundered under a dense beech tree canopy.
At least that was the case until the winter of 2014/2015 when volunteers started to reclaim and restore the forest, by removing the invasive plants, reopening paths and caring for the trees. Work has progressed steadily over the years and in the winter of 2016/2017 Challenge Fund money was secured to properly fix the paths by mechanically clearing them and putting down new stones. The forest has now be officially reopened.
You can follow the ongoing improvements of the forest here.
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- Cherry Laurel completely obscured the path into the forest.
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- A special thank you to Thomas Hughes Contracts, Jonesborough, for kindly providing their digger services free of charge.
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- The pond has been filled in as it was in too bad a shape to save.
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- This tent has been cleared up after being left for a few weeks in the hope that whoever put it there would remove it.
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- Clearing the back path before 1
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- Clearing the back path before 2
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- Clearing the back path before 3
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- After a day’s work
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- Challenge Fund money was secured to mend and upgrade the paths and fill in the pond.
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- A drain was needed to improve the access path.
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- New steps were installed for the secondary loop path.
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- Last vegetation clearance of the season, removing gorse from the back top corner of the site.
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- A hidden clearing was discovered behind the wall of gorse.
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- Pupils from the local primary school came out with us to explore this fantastic forest.
