Marsh volunteers tackle Gur Beck issues

Seven Marsh Insurance corporate volunteers spent the whole of Thursday November 14th at the Sustead cluster, all of their work centring on Gur Beck. David H, John and Trevor were there to lead and help them. While Trevor headed a team of three repairing the plank bridge over the beck on the Common, John took a group of four to the scrape next to the Spurrell’s Wood scrape.Meanwhile, David and Peter took measurements of the scrape collecting silt from the drain running through Susted Common, with a view to designing a plan to double its size. Later in the day, David employed all seven volunteers measuring aspects of the beck. Below, Trevor, John and David give brief descriptions of their work.

One of the planks on the bridge between the Common and the Surveyor’s Allotment had begun to rot so this small team removed the rotten plank and replaced it with a new one – quite hard work as the bridge as a whole had to be lifted. Interestingly, when we lifted the bridge, we discovered significant gnaw marks beneath it. There are no beavers in the area – if there were, we would see plenty of other evidence of their presence. Could it be otter? Muntjac? Rats? Has anyone got any suggestions?

A team of 4 of the Marsh volunteers joined John to clear out the silt trap in front of the bird hide. This was very much to their liking as they got into the cold water and fairly quickly shovelled a lot of silt sludge onto the adjacent island to build it back up. We then re-instated the entrance sluice to the silt trap by hammering in some stakes cut from the recent coppicing event and weaving in some thinner branches. This will have to be checked and possibly strengthened at some point as the water speed has increased in strength at this point of the Gur Beck. After the break we went back to the hide area to do some dry hedging, before David introduced the team to some stream flow measuring and science involving small oranges!

As the final effort of the afternoon, to provide intellectual effort to top off the earlier physical exercise, the group divided into three. The objectives were to measure cross sections of the Gur Beck and estimate its discharge. This information is necessary to support any applications we may make to the County Council Flooding Department to install woody structures in the stream which will enhance its biodiversity. 

Twelve cross sections were easily measured with tapes and rulers, but it was necessary to measure current speed in order to calculate discharge. This was highly scientific, timing carefully selected oranges travelling over a measured distance. These are perfect for the task, because like icebergs, most of the mass is underwater so, unlike Pooh-Sticks, they are unaffected by wind. Much hilarity was caused by the oranges becoming tangled in natural structures of the kind we hope to put in and volunteers attempts to release them.

All in all, a very fruitful day – many thanks to Gavin and his six colleagues for the hard work they did, with such enthusiasm. It is always a huge pleasure to have them with us.

Peter Maingay, Trevor Williams, John Rea and David Harper

November 14th 2024