Washacre Primary School, Westhoughton 19th and 26th June 2020
Washacre Primary School, Westhoughton first developed an outdoor education plot in 1991, it could well have been one of the first built with the help of the Wildlife Trust’s Bolton Wildlife Project. The site was turned from a patch of rough grassland into a meadow and a woodland surrounding a pond.
Like a lot of similar sites there were questions about how to use and manage these resources and the school approached the Bolton Wildlife Project in 1995 for help. What’s happened in the last 25 years we don’t know except at some point a willow dome was built. So, when BCV arrived things were a bit overrun, the pond had filled in and not much could be seen of it’s former greatness.
The first cohort of our intrepid socially distanced six, Tom’s Treehuggers, got to work and cut back the vegetation, gave the willow dome a haircut, and dug out the planters. Tom ordered some heavy machinery from Trucks ‘R’ Us but wasn’t impressed with the size of the diggers when they arrived. Anyway, they got the job done.
UPDATE – 28/07/20
Rick’s Rangers continued the work on the 26th by digging out a bit more of the pond and clearing more the earth from the area around the raised beds, finishing off with a layer of chippings. Finally a belated presentation to Dave of his hedgelaying prize. You can find out what that was about by going to Hedge Wars 2020.
Many thanks to Jackie (Anna’s mum) at Washacre Primary for asking us to work on this site, and well done to everyone for doing a great job. Hopefully there’s more to come.
Photos: 19th June: Jo Nalton, 26th June: Colin Mather
