Dismay, bewilderment and anger. Infill of Manor lake reaching end. Pump removed. 24th June 202324/6/2023
Extraordinary events unfold in Russia with lightning speed. Prigozhin has rebelled against Putin and 'invaded' Russia from Ukraine. Effectively a coup attempt in every way except name. Momentous times. Back to our main feature. I've spoken to a number of people about the infill of Manor lake. One of these people's was part of the original design team that produced the plans for the restoration of Manor farm. She and others have confirmed what I have been saying all along: Manor lake should not have been filled in. Instead it should have been extended west to form one long lake that almost reaches the copse. What is happening is nothing more than environmental vandalism, the destruction of a thriving and established eco-system. I have no idea how this got signed off, despite ecological surveys which the Inert site manager claims have taken place. People are dismayed that the restoration isn't complete. It should have been so since last year. They are bewildered as to why Manor lake has been filled in, and angered that it has been filled in. The creation of yet more marsh land is not what we really need, seeing as the whole area is pretty much a marsh, with lots of low lying wetlands, crisscrossed with a myriad of drainage ditches. Anyway, despite this, the end is FINALLY in sight. As I said three weeks ago, Inert have started to form the new shallow, featureless Manor lake by flattening all the stuff they had built up over the last year or so. However, this is not to say that Inert have stopped filling in what little remains of the deeper areas of Manor lake. Oh, no, not by a long shot. I saw yet more stuff being brought in, yes in, to the site on Tuesday! Even when Inert have loads of piles of the stuff lying around. Our long serving, faithful pump has been removed, and the wide channel serving as drainage has been filled in, sadly. Photos are a bit murky as I was onsite at 5:30am this morning. As suspected, Inert have begun to dig out and profile Manor lake. A large amount of work has been accomplished on the infill of the current Manor lake. Large swathes of spoil, piled up over the previous months, have been flattened and moved to the east side of the lake and used as infill. Inert have created a large flat expanse, about 4 feet lower (in places) that the banking that separates the area from the east main reed bed, aka East fen. Sadly, also as predicted, the lovely basin (or bit of Manor lake at its original depth) has been filled in, covering the strange structures built last week. Inert have a habit of doing this, build structures then obliterate them for no real reason. I suspect the last remaining bits of the basin will be filled in during this coming week. Inert have also flattened the rather lump edge of the infill circling the north and west sides of the peninsular. However, it still looks higher than the land on the peninsular, and wont offer much of wetlands if it isn't lowered by a large amount. I know Inert tended to try and keep water levels low in Manor lake, but I didn't think they were that much lower than land levels. This means the infill will not allow wetlands, as it is too high. A rather more interesting development, which may not come to much (we are talking Inert here) is that a large patch of ground has been dug out near when the pump used to be situated. This could be part of the extended Manor lake, and could represent one of the deeper parts. On the other hand, it might be Inert digging one of their strange structures, which they will fill in again. Weather wise: it is still very hot, with parts of Sussex and Kent having hosepipe bans. Can't argue that the planet is warming up. Tuesday's stomp revealed two diggers, one bulldozer and two heavy earth movers hard at work on the infill of Manor lake. Of particular note, I did not see any more stuff being trucked onto the site. This is not to say that more stuff will not be trucked in, but it is an encouraging sign that the end of restoration is in sight. In another encouraging sign, a digger appeared to be hard at work digging out stuff from the infill on the eastern side of Manor lake. This bit of infill is higher than the surrounding land, particularly the peninsular and south footpath. Much of this area needs to be dug out to stand any chance of forming wetlands, let alone a lake. Perhaps Inert have finally reached the stage where there is sufficient stuff to complete the infill, and now they just need to move stuff to where it is needed, and dig out the deeper parts of Manor lake - much like they did with Finch pond. In a less encouraging sign, the wide tracked digger was in the basin in the eastern part of Manor lake. Heavy earth movers were transporting stuff here from the western part of Manor lake. The stuff appears to be used to filling in bits of the basin. Hard to tell without both more being completed and a site visit. The digger driver did appear to be bored. He was twirling his cab (and hence digger arm) around in circles as he waited for a heavy earth mover to reverse and drop its load. It's what I would do in this situation. In this second post, we get a closer view of the strange structure Inert built in the southeast part of Manor lake, and wonder if they will remain or, as has oft happened, they are filled in. Photos may be a little out of sequence. My camera was not updating its time properly. A bit of a photo fest due to not visiting the infill of Manor lake for some weeks, partly due to hols, partly tiredness through decorating and partly as it was so hot. Two pieces of good news, firstly Bumbling Boris has resigned as an MP. Good riddance too. He knew he was going to lose his constituency come next general election or if he were censured in the partygate inquiry - that's why he tried to be allowed to swap to a safer seat. The Trumpian attacks of the partygate committee, by both himself and his ghastly supporters, are well out of order. Talking of Trump - he has been charged with mishandling top secret government documents. We all hope he gets banged to rights. His lawyers claimed he kept them as a memento. Seriously! Anyway, enough world news to place the context of the times. On with the photos. Inert prepare for installation of sluice gate in banking around main reed bed? 7th June 202312/6/2023
A rather dramatic site visit on Wednesday. Firstly, I noticed a digger working on the southeast shore of Manor lake. This would be the wide tracked digger that was in for repairs a few weeks ago. Inert use the wide tracked digger for working in water - which this one was doing. I couldn't see what it was doing, due to the intervening mass of vegetation between us, but it appeared to be profiling the infill. A heavy earth mover was bringing it stuff to fill in the area where it was working. The new, sadly filled in, Manor lake, calls for the odd bit of deeper water - pretty much like the new Finch pond complex. Our bulldozer driver was also hard at work infilling, upfilling and profiling the new Manor lake. I noticed boss man paying a visit. Secondly, pump station mighty mound est mort. Yep, its gone, again. However, John Stacey lorries were still trucking stuff in. This time a whole load of sand. A second digger was digging out the most northerly of the mounds built on the infill over the wet months of the year. Thirdly, Inert appear to be preparing for the installation of a sluice gate in the banking around the main reed beds. To do this they appear to have blocked off the hole they left in the banking earlier in the year. They have cut another hole in the banking where a wooden stake had been inserted some months ago. This is rather naughty, as there are some ground breeding birds still breeding in this area, which is one reason I stay off this part of the works. Visiting the current infill area of Manor lake is fine, as nothing is breeding there. Well, it is still nice to see huge amounts of progress taking place. We returned from our holiday in the north lake district, in and around Ullswater, knackered after days of quite strenuous walking. The oddest holiday we've ever had. It hadn't rained for weeks before we arrived, and it never rained whilst we were there, and it didn't rain for at least a week after we left. All foul and cold weather gear were left stowed in our bags. Most walks were conducted in T-shirt! The solidity of the ground around Manor farm, also pointed to no rainfall around this area. Heavy plant were kicking up huge amounts of dust, as no water bowser was operating to damp down the area. Inert had made great gains in their infill during the two weeks since I'd visited the site. The infill of the eastern half of Manor lake exhibited the most dramatic infill, progressing south by a considerable rate. Our mighty 'pump station mound MK II' had been reduced in size considerably. A mere shadow of its former self. However, this is where matters get rather curious, which should come as no surprise to regular readers. At least two John Stacey lorries were shipping stuff over from Chandlers farm, and dumping it along the south edge of the mighty pump station mound. Where upon a digger would load up a heavy earth mover with stuff, for said mover to take said stuff over to the infill. I'm not sure why the John Stacey lorries couldn't drive onto the infill and dump their loads themselves. The infill, by the looks of things, were quite solid. I noticed another daft aspect of the restoration. The route of the bridlepath, cleared some weeks ago by contractors, was now an overgrown mass of nettles. It is not possible to see the path. Oh well, I'm sure it will all be sorted out when Inert come to build the bridlepath. I did not pay a Friday evening or weekend site visit, as we were now too busy decorating our house. Back filling of reports part 1. This is the week we went on holiday - Friday was change over day. Far too busy prepping for holiday to upload report. There wasn't really much to report, really. Inert were continuing the slow infill of the north east side of Manor lake. Basically, increasing the height of their infill to date (upfill I call it) and straightening out the line of infill i.e. filling in the funny little inlet that so intrigued me. The fencing was also fixed on the morning I did my walk. A very nice job it was - apart from one fence post which was very, very wobbly. We went on holiday in the penultimate week of May, stomping around Ullswater. Hence no update that week.
On our return, we set about decorating our main bedroom. A truly titanic task it was. Firstly rectifying all the faults the previous owners had inflicted on the walls: imagine large gouges in the wall where they dug into it trying to get wallpaper off, then they appeared to use a yard brush to paint the walls, having first swept the yard with it. Huge lumps and streaks of paint, some 1 mm or more high. No attempt to mask off light switches, skirting boards, door frames or wall hooks. Gobs of paint all over all of them. Sheesh, some people. Anyway, I was too knackered after painting to disappear down to Manor farm on Friday evening the first week were were back; and too busy painting on the weekend. Last Friday evening was simply too hot, in excess of 25C. In the end, I visited Manor farm at 5:30 am this Sunday morning. Already it was quite hot! I will fill in the missing two weeks, but first I felt it important to reveal how much progress Inert have made over the past three weeks - basically since it stopped raining. My cartography skills are not the best, not helped by FastStone's graphics editor, but this is my best stab at conveying how much infill has taken place. The yellow bit is what Inert have accomplished over the past three/four weeks. |
AuthorA polite notice first: All photographs on this blog are owned by me and subject to copyright. Archives
November 2025
Categories |