Prestolee 25th October 2020
Updated 19/02/21
Prestolee Pocket Park, or Stoneclough Community Woodland to its friends, is a small patch of land between a housing estate, Trinity Church, and Prestolee Primary School that had been forgotten and ignored for years. That was until the Manchester, Bolton and Bury Canal Society (MBBCS) decided to do something with it.
Their goal was to create a green space for use by the local community, school, church and groups for events, community food growing, and other great stuff.
Raising additional cash from Kearsley Area Forum, Bolton at Home, Prestolee Academy Trust and central government funding the MBBCS approached numerous volunteer to groups to help with the heavy lifting.
In 2019 BCV began the work of constructing dead hedges and removing brash and trash from the site, this year we continue with some new plantings.
This task was supposed to have been part of our Halloween fun task but nobody (dead or alive) wore their hats. Maybe the hats were socially distancing. See the Halloween Hall of Horrors for how things used to be including Tom’s team at Moses Gate this year.
22nd November 2020
This is our last visit to Prestolee Pocket Park for this year. Autumn and winter are the best times for tidying up woodlands as birds have finished nesting and most of the leaves are off the trees. Most of today’s work involved cutting branches that were overhanging the footpath or were unsafe. We also cleared the paths of fallen leaves and trimmed back the hedges to improve access.
Although not the best of conservation tasks it was still good to get out and do something positive. 12 photos below, the last 6 are from today.