… a project to improve biodiversity and flood resilience
Over the last couple of years, we have been delighted to work with the West Cumbria Rivers Trust, an environmental charity aiming to improve watercourses for people and wildlife, on designing a project to re-naturalise Fornside Beck. To put it another way, we’re rewiggling the stream through Fornside. You may have wondered how this stream came to be at a higher elevation than the surrounding field. A century or two ago, it was artificially straightened to speed the water away from the pastureland, this was commonly done as an ‘improvement’ in those days, but it had unintended consequences for flora and fauna and those living further downstream. By recreating a more natural river channel with a wide wetland habitat, the water’s flow will be slowed in times of flood and a wide corridor of freshwater and terrestrial wildlife habitats will be re-created.
Our relatively small project is part of a wider St. John’s Beck project, linked to West Cumbria Rivers Trust’s Resilient Glenderamackin flood-risk reduction plan. It is also supported by the Environment Agency and Natural England.
Colloquially known nowadays as re-wiggling, this type of project to kick start nature’s own processes of creating natural rapids, riffles, curves and pools has been successfully implemented in many spots around Cumbria, improving biodiversity and flood resilience. Two of the books we’ve recommended in recent newsletters, Wild Fell by Lee Schofield and English Pastoral by James Rebanks, describe in detail their similar projects above Haweswater and in the Matterdale areas. This short BBC clip demonstrates the transformation at Swindale Beck above Haweswater; a much larger project than ours, but with the same driving principles.
We’ll keep this blog space, as well as our social media, updated with photographs as the work develops. Most of the physical work should be complete by early summer, and planting will take place next winter. These short human interventions will pave the way for the real magic to take place: watch this space over the next decade to enjoy what we hope will be a wonderful transformation, allowing nature to re-create an important wildlife corridor.
Project Plan
Preliminary works are underway
A temporary ditch has been created to keep water away from the area that will be ‘naturalised’ during the digging phase. (April 2024)
Above: looking from the Farmhouse westwards, across the field towards the road
Below Left: looking from the field westwards towards the road
Below Right: looking from the roadside hedge eastwards
