Recently, Natural England were gifted an area of land off the Pocklington Canal near Coates Lock (north of Bielby) from the estate of the late Mr Blackburn. This includes two old traditional meadows (one of which is SSSI and presently has a tremendous number of Cowslips), a fen meadow, reedbed areas and an old orchard – all surrounded by thick traditional hedgerows. This area of land will now be managed by Natural England and the Friends of the Lower Derwent Valley, as well as Carstairs Countryside Trust, who have a small parcel of land next door. This starts to form another block of land managed for nature conservation further east of the main block (Melbourne and Thornton Ings), and will form part of the extended NNR planned for later this year 🍾🤩
Before the start of the breeding season our team were hard at work starting to clear up the garden and orchard – making space to try and recover the old varieties of apple trees, as well as starting to fence off the site whilst enhancing the boundary hedgerows. Most of the trees appear to be still alive having started to blossom recently which is encouraging, and we look forward to watching as it develops further, with our fantastic team ready and willing to lend a hand. This site has largely been abandoned for over 30 years, so there’s a lot of sensitive work to do – but being just off the canal towpath it is hoped that we can create a site for visitors to enjoy, with our partners at Canal and Rivers Trust and the Pocklington Canal Amenity Society – watch this space 👀😁
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