Mothering Sunday, 15th March 15 or Mothers’ Day is it these modern days? Good turn out and much done including The Nubbins, a job that has been on the list for years probably near a decade, so big sense of achievement when completed. We cleaned up the steps at the bottom, moved the path on to its correct line and replaced steps at base of steep hill, installed a stubby waymark post at the top of the hill to provide a sight line for those coming from the field above and cut steps in the rock/earth from the top down on the steepest part. They will be eroded but we made the effort. Later, replaced a broken signpost on Ankerdine and strengthened a stile and replaced its step right down in the South of the parish near Wants Green. Good stuff–thanks all who attended.

Ben and me, inspecting a list of problems from Jon White our Area Officer and doing a bit of part time signing in the rain (geddid?); map below showing our route then pics of the worker.

Route taken with Signing Points

Pics from Sundays work party when we installed, renewed, fixed up around 10 signposts plus some waymarking. Map reading courses available to needy people (if you write this then you will get a chance to say how history happened).  Must be a lol somewhere.  Thanks to all who came along, only about 3 SPs left in stock to do.  Ben and I will check out other reported problems this week hopefully.  Next meet 15th March

Ian passed me a folder of PONS stuff and it proved interesting, well a little, so I thought that I would put them in the blog as a little bit of our history.

Here is a list of PONS members from December 1992:

of the above, four are still active members and Audrey too.

This is the list from 1995: so in this list Ben has appeared so it makes 5 still active.

Here, now is a letter from Keith (Trumper) our first footpath officer and founder of the PONS group, to Ian Pennell dated 12 Jan 1996 suggesting it was time to find a new ‘leader’ but as he refers to the County’s new scheme (the Parish Paths Partnership P3) and the Parish Council, he means a new footpath officer.

For the record, the PONS is still going strong, Feb 2015, full credit to Keith and the founder members.  The group remains very active and well represented; here are the current members:

Jon Pearsall, Tom Pearsall, John Corbett, Tim Nott (and sometimes his family members), Ian Pennell, Ben Cartwright, Simon Honeybourne, Alasdair Maxwell-Stewart, Tony Lewington, Mike Install, Rob and Ross Day, Carl Armstrong, Andy Palmer.  We hope and believe that Keith would be proud, we know Audrey (Keith’s wife), now moved to the village centre, is.

Following on the apology from the Chief Exec. of MHDC, HERE is a letter from Kevin Oliver, Countryside Access Manager, on behalf of Mr Ian Bamforth, Head of Service at Worcestershire County Council.

In the middle of the fields behind Eddie Williams farm, a muddy stream, cow trodden and giant puff balls the girls used for footie practice.  Over growth of brambles, oozing marsh, less than pure water and broken down fences.  The causeway and fences to prevent cattle roaming on to it and damaging it, was installed by County years ago–I guess around 15.  By 2015 just about all of the posts used had rotted off at the base, causing the fence to lean alarmingly, on the point of collapsing completely.

As usual our leader (taskmaster?) JP had a plan.  This plan was criticised, often, we just wouldn’t have done it that way and told him. As is the way with gang masters, we received no rations, commendation or other sustenance and bent to our respective tasks diligently with heads down. Some had escaped the chains to do the dainty task of erecting signs in the area to guide people along the Martley Circular Walk, the leaflet for which would benefit from a little more clarity in places.

After several unrefreshed hours continuous work the coffee angel, Janet appeared–thanks–gulp, gone, back to work.

Here are the pics and thank you to the youngsters for sticking it out, being cheerful and helping us on the day.  Better say thanks too to JP otherwise he will be mardy; we enjoyed the work, great plan, thank goodness you do all the organizing, especially of the untalented team you have to use.

JP has erected very useful map boards on the Martley Circular, at the furthest out point and where some choose to start this beautiful circular ramble. Black arrow marks the spot.

Here is the letter from Jack Hegarty CE MHDC in answer to ours

After huge amount of hard work over several days the path along the river at Kingswood, badly slumped, has been re-opened by Worcestershire Country Council.  our Area Officer Jonathan White was full of praise and very impressed by our efforts, here is his email:

Hi John

I had a walk through the riverside last Thursday and the path is looking much better. I was particularly pleased with the new steps at the south end, a good job well done. In some places, where you have used random tree branches to support the surface of the path, this will need regular future monitoring to check that the edge of the path is still capable of holding up a person walking near the edge, are you/the pnones okay to do this?

I have removed the closure notices.

It has been very good to work with your group to get a new path open after the huge landslips.

If you are interested in doing this type of work in the future, we could save additional money if the work could be completed within 21 days, I know this puts extra pressure on everyone, but the cost savings are much greater if we remove the need to have a Temporary Closure Order (up to 6 months) we can still close the path under an Emergency Closure Order (21 days), the saving would be over £1000 for every 6 month period.

Best regards

Jon

A Martley initiative, geology themed walks has been accepted as a good idea worth sharing with their members by Walkers are Welcome. Martley was the 13th community in the UK to achieve accreditation by the Walkers are Welcome movement.  You can read about it HERE. As its name suggests, WaW encourages communities to make walkers welcome through achieving certain criteria, such as local walks, community support, local walks maintenance group and so on.  Since its inception WaW has achieved notable success, now incorporating well over 100 members and many more on application.

Teme Valley Geological Society put forward the idea to WaW of inviting their member communities to perhaps encourage walking with a geology theme and WaW inserted the following into their most recent newsletter.  TVGS itself is leading occasional geology themed walks with the local Worcester Ramblers group and this has been very well received.

Below is the WaW editorial and HERE is a more detailed version for members only

Geology Walks
Themes add interest to any guided walk, walking festival programme or self-guided publication. Having lost its stuffy boys’ grammar school image, the fascinating study of geology is becoming increasingly popular. Not only in rural areas though. The stones used in buildings can provide a fascinating insight into old ways of working and living, many exhibit excellent fossils.

In Martley, Worcestershire, walking groups can avail themselves of a geology interpreter to go along and explain the local landscape, how it was formed, the underlying rock types and how they influence everything from buildings to agriculture.

The success of this initiative is worth passing on, so if your local group thinks it a good idea, why not plan one of your trips with a geological theme? Remember this is aimed at non-geologists as an introduction. The walks are not geology field trips!

If you want to pursue this, contact John Nicklin, Parish Paths Warden for Martley, our 13th WaW village, and Secretary of the Teme Valley Geological Society. Further details are on the NEW Geology Walks factsheet available to download.