Update on Ethy

Wednesday 9th November 2011

We have finished the current felling phase of Douglas Fir at Ethy. Fortunately the weather held and the work was able to progress rapidly with minimal damage to the area. The veteran oaks in the area cleared are now free to spread their limbs once again and now we're keeping our fingers crossed that they will make a recovery from the adverse affects of the Douglas Fir plantation.

Our thanks go to the contractors who worked hard to reduce their impact on the site, which is difficult considering the constraints they were working within.

On a separate note, some keen observers may have noticed a large limb that fell off one of the veteran oaks along the parkland edge just before the works began. This limb fell off prior to work commencing on the site and was probably due to "Summer Branch Drop", a response by trees to drought periods during the growing season, like the ones we had earlier in the year. We had quite a few trees this year, lose limbs this way across the Southeast Cornwall area.

Now we are onto the next stages of restoring the wood pasture. We will be fencing the old boundaries of the southern slopes over the coming weeks. This will make the compartments stock proof and help us manage the wood pasture correctly and effectively in the future. New gates and footpath works to the paths that run through the southern slopes will also be going on over the winter period so that walkers will still be able to access these areas.

Further works to remove the remaining brash and reduce the stumps of the felled trees will be going on as well over the winter. This phase of works might go into the spring or early summer depending on the weather. Hopefully by next summer the main infrastructure and big works on the site will be done and it can start to settle down again.

If you would like anymore information or details as to the works and why we are doing the work at Ethy please do get in contact by phone or e-mail or stop one of our Rangers when we there.

Thanks for reading and we'll be keeping you posted with events and ongoing works at Ethy in the upcoming months.

The Ranger Team, Southeast Cornwall, National Trust