Part of the National Trust Riverlands funded UCL pond week, this pond had previously been managed. The management had included the coppicing of willows in the pond basin but the stumps had been removed hence slim willow shoots had sprouted throughout.
Apart from the heavy stumps which had to be removed by the digger, the slim willow shoots were very easy to remove with loppers by volunteers, and the speed at which this happened made the task very enjoyable.
The removal of the willows across the pond basin will hopefully allow water to return to the pond.
Summer 2020
Returning to the pond in July 2020, the pond still looks very bare around the margins where the water level was high over the winter and has reduced over the summer. It usually take two years for the margins to look their best anyway – so we can show you this in 2021.
The really exciting news is that, although the pond doesn’t look terribly exciting, it is full of submerged plants which have provided a fantastic habitat for Great Crested Newts to lay eggs and we have a new record for the species for this pond, which was uninhabitable for them before!
Restoring, resurrecting and conserving Norfolk's ponds. 