Completed Projects
All
Souls Churchyard Causeway
Pond Dilly
Pond NatureTrail
St
Mary's Churchyard Hattons
Pond Greenfields
School Hedge
All Souls Churchyard, Hartfordbridge
In 1999 Hartley
Wintney Parochial Church Council transferred maintenance responsibility for
the churchyard at All Souls Church at Hartfordbridge to the Parish Council.
Voluntary resources undertook this role for many years and had recently carried
out levelling work to a number of graves where subsidence had occurred.
The first task facing the Parish Council was to remove
improve the condition of the site by removing the accumulated soil, grass cuttings
and other debris which over many years had been deposited on the North side
of the churchyard; to do this it would be necessary to 'lift' the lower limbs
of a number of Yew trees which were reaching ground level and preventing access
not only to the material to be removed but also to a number of graves.
Speed was of the essence if the project was to be
implemented safely and practically because the adjacent, derelict site which
provided the only suitable area to locate the five, 10m skips necessary to remove
the material from site and on which to burn the tree cuttings was due for restoration.
Work on the £1,500.00 project began immediately Hart
District Council granted consent for the works to the trees and was completed
within the six day programme by Mark Hazell with assistance from staff provided
by Premier Ground & Garden Maintenance Services; funding was provided from
the Parish Council churchyard & burial ground maintenance budget.
The picturesque and popular Causeway Pond, situated
opposite the Tudor Causeway Farm farmhouse, is one of the most visited of village
features but in 1998 the Parish Council recognized a potentially hazardous situation
on its West bank which, following consultation with the Environment Agency whereby
wavelets created by the wind blowing off the adjacent golf course, coupled with
water movement generated by the local duck and goose population had seriously
eroded the underside of the bank which was beginning to collapse into the pond.
As the bank was, in some places, 1.5m high, this presented a serious hazard
to those visiting the area, particularly small children who enjoy feeding the
resident wildfowl.
The landowner, Hart District Council was unable to
fund the work necessary to address the matter and erected hazard tape and warning
notices in the area but the Parish Council did not consider this a satisfactory
response and having again consulted with the Environment Agency and obtained
the consent of the landowner, implemented a project to eliminate the erosion
problem.
The bank was re-graded to reduce its height to no
more than 300mm at the water edge with a 900mm level area immediately behind
leading to a 13% gradient to meet the original surrounding ground level.
Treated timber stakes were then driven vertically into the front of the bank
and 150mm deep timber fixed - ½ above, ½ below water level to protect the foot
of the bank. Locally cut Hazel was then used to form a 300mm high woven
front face to the bank, behind which hessian was attached to retain the compacted
top soil used to complete the reconstruction of the pond edge; to allow wildfowl
to continue to access the pond, two 'beaches' were created using a pea shingle
surface to protect the soil. The completed site was then broadcast using
a proprietary mixture of wildflower/grass seed.
The project cost, £2,000.00, was met from the Parish
Council Environmental Maintenance budget and was completed within the five day
programme by Mark Hazell and Derek Hughes with additional assistance from volunteer,
Jim Reed.
Greenfields County Primary School is situated in Green
Lane, Hartley Wintney which lies on the line of the original London - Odiham
road which ran at the foot of the hill around which the earliest settlement
of Hartley Wintney was situated. When the Odiham & Alton Turnpike
Trust was formed in 1755, the village moved North and Hartley Row developed
around what is now the A30.
In 1993 the Hampshire Wildlife Trust surveyed a number
of hedgerows in the village, including the Greenfields School boundary hedge,
and in its report suggested that it was probably the remains of the Medieval
hedge which would have grown either side of the London - Odiham road.
Five years later, the Parish Council received a request from the Headmaster
of Greenfields School for assistance in improving the security of the Schools
boundary and from this developed the proposal to undertake restoration works
to the remains of the Medieval hedge.
Parts of the hedge were coppiced, others cut back
to 1.2m high and where possible, suitable stems were layered to generate new
growth. Areas of the bank upon which the hedge grew which had been eroded
by children taking short cuts to and from school were reinstated and excessively
low growth from neighbouring trees cut back to the allow more light to reach
the hedge and generate new growth. Over 500 mixed (Hawthorn, Holly, Blackthorn,
Hazel, Field Maple and Dog Rose) whips were planted within the hedge line to
gap up open areas and to protect the completed works, a 1.2m high stock fence
with two straining wires was erected around the entire bank.
The works was carried out by Hart District Council
Countryside Services working under a Service Level Agreement with the Parish
Council with professional assistance from Mark Hazell and Phil Hart. Completed
to programme, the £2,000.00 project cost was funded jointly by the Parish Council
and Hampshire County Council through its Forest of Bere & Eversley Project.
The 1998 Country Towns Initiative improvements to
Hartley Wintney High Street provided the Parish Council with an opportunity
to carry out improvements to Hattons Pond, a central feature of the village.
The narrowing of the A30 from twin to single carriageway created a new grassed
area on the road (North) side of the pond but while this was a welcome element
of the scheme, it meant that the public would have faced a 1.0m high drop into
the pond if the revetment boards, installed by Hart District Council, all remained
in place.
Apart from wishing to mitigate the safety hazard created
by the High Street improvements, the Parish Council also wished to address other
problems associated with the pond - reducing the oil based pollution resulting
from it being fed primarily from road run-offs on the A30 and opening up the
South side of the site to facilitate public access.
After seeking advice from the Environmental Agency,
Hampshire Wildlife Trust and MMG Civil Engineering Systems a proposal was submitted
to Hart District Council which, after protracted discussions, eventually consented
to a proposal to a reduction in the height of the revetment and the initiation
of a planting regime in the pond and its feeder ditches; it also agreed that
a redundant ditch on the South side of the pond could be filled in, an overgrown
area of Dogwood cut back to generate new, low growth to provide shelter for
the ducks on the pond and access to the area improved by providing a bridge
over the main feeder.
The work was carried out in Autumn 1998 by Mark Hazell,
assisted by Phil Hart and within a few months, the use of coir planting around
the pond perimeter had achieved its objective; for the first time in over 50
years the pond edges were covered by aquatic and marginal plants; it has proved
so successful that consideration is being given to cutting back the plants.
The planting in the feeder ditches has also been successful and the previously
regular sight of oil based pollution on the water surface of the pond is no
longer apparent.
Maintenance
responsibility for the churchyard at the 13th C St. Mary's Church
in Hartley Wintney passed to the Parish Council in 1976 and for twenty years
it cut the grass on a regular basis but undertook no other works on the site.
St. Mary's Church and churchyard are very special to many people, particularly
long time residents of the village, and in the mid nineties it became apparent
that although the grass was being cut, other elements of the site were being
neglected; path edges had become eroded, shrubs and small trees had become seriously
overgrown, views to the South of the site had become lost to undergrowth and
invasive trees; visitors, particularly the elderly, were intimidated by the
high perimeter hedge and overlarge Irish Yew trees and the lychgate was in need
of urgent restoration.
In 1994 the
lychgate was professionally restored by Pool & Son (Hartley Wintney) Ltd.
and later its adjoining stile by volunteer, Neil Hatt; the first stage of the
path restoration project, from the lychgate to church tower, was completed by
[then] maintenance contractor, LAB Services.
Two years later,
a combination of volunteer and contract resources restored the path, re-built
its fence and removed invasive growth to restore the views to the South of the
site as well as removing a redundant spoil tip and converting its site to a
grassed area. The same year, contractors reduced the height and depth
of the perimeter fence to allow the site to be better viewed from the road two
large, inappropriate Cypress trees were removed from the site, one by contractors,
the other by volunteers and a large area of scrub, which included the highly
invasive Japanese Knotweed, was removed, revealing over twenty long concealed
graves.
In 1997, following
discussions with and consent from Hart District Council, a programme to reduce
the size of the Irish Yew trees throughout the site was initiated. Professional
advice had indicated that drastic work to Yew trees may often result in re-growth
problems and because the trees were generally planted in pairs, initially one
was coppiced while its partner simply cut back to around 1500mm high.
The results have been such that in the autumn of that year work commenced to
coppice all the trees; protected from the local deer population, the coppiced
trees have produced 1200mm of new growth in less than three years.
The work is
ongoing and subject to the availability of funding and other resources but to
date over £10,000.00 has been spent in carrying out these works; this has been
augmented by the dedicated work of volunteers who have undertaken over 500 work
days on the site.
Registered footpath
No. 21 runs the length of part of Phoenix Green Common known locally as the
Nature Trail since Hartley Wintney Preservation Society established a marked
walk on the site in the early seventies. Although it is not a bridle-path,
it is much used by horse riders and to address the considerable damage caused
by this activity which made it, in places, almost impassable by walkers, in
1999 the Parish Council embarked on project to improve areas of poor drainage
and provide a more durable surface.
Sections of
badly damaged path were scraped back to a firm base and the level raised again
using rejects with sections of land drain installed across the width of the
path; the rejects were then covered with a permeable membrane which would prevent
the final surfacing material from being washed into the rejects. When
a firm surface had been established along the full 1km length of the path, a
new wearing surface of consolidated DoTp Type 1 scalpings was applied; to minimize
the risk of vehicular use of the restored path, locked, demountable bollards were installed
at each point where it joined a road.
The work was
completed to budget by Mark Hazell in the programmed six days and was jointly
funded by the Parish Council, Hart District Council (the landowner) and Hampshire
County Council through its Community Action Fund.
Dilly Pond is
probably the last remaining physical feature of the Medieval village which was
focused around St. Mary's Church, half a mile from the centre of what is now
the village of Hartley Wintney. Old pictures show it as a watering pond
for cattle, a role it played for several centuries before the village moved
North as improvements in road links between London and the West Country resulted
in what is know the A30 becoming a major route for traffic.
Now fed primarily
from road run-offs, the pond also served for many years as a useful receptacle
for slurry washed down from the nearby farm; this, by its composition, controlled
the growth of invasive flora in the pond but the farm's move from livestock
to arable meant that plants such as Reed Mace were able to become well established
and soon Dilly Pond was almost lost to view.
Several attempts
were made in the seventies to clear the pond of its mass of Reed Mace and associated
flora, as well as the accumulated silt and farm waste, but these were always
unsuccessful because the entire area was never cleared and within a few weeks,
invasive growth had again taken hold. As recently as 1998 partial clearance
of Reed Mace was undertaken by an enthusiastic young professional Ranger employed
by the Parish Council under a Service Level Agreement with Hart District Council
but within three months he and his colleagues were obliged to return to the
site to clear new growth and within six months water was barely visible through
the Reed Mace.
In late 1998,
the Parish Council made budget provision to completely dredge the pond to expose
its clay base and following enquiries to four companies, the contract was let
to Dave Miller (Plant) Ltd. of Sherfield on Loddon. In August 1999, the
pond was drained and over a three day period in September, 200 cu.m of accumulated
silt, slurry and invasive flora was removed. Heavy rain days later quickly
refilled the pond and within a few weeks the water had settled and the site
began to look finished.
The safety fence
was repaired and re-painted as part of the project and the water supply to the
pond improved when a number of nearby road drainage gullies feeding it were
cleaned. In the autumn, over 200 wild flower plugs were planted on the
pond edge, inside the fenced area which will remain un-cut, and today the pond,
which is inspected weekly to monitor any re-appearance of invasive flora, provides
Hartley Wintney with one of its most attractive features.