Sheffield and Rotherham Wildlife Trust’s walling volunteer group have clocked up over 1300 hours repairing historic drystone walls around Sheffield in the last 8 months, including over 330 hours within the Sheffield Lakeland area.
This amazing feat has been completed by just 17 part-time and weekend volunteers.
Restoring the lattice
The Sheffield Lakeland Landscape Partnership project ‘Restoring the Lattice’, has been working with the dedicated team of volunteers, training them into skilled drystone wallers, able to repair some of the hundreds of miles of historic drystone walls within the city.
After spending more than a year completing their training, the team has been working independently since February. They have now contributed over 1300 hours of their time to restoring some of the historic drystone walls in and around our nature reserves.
The Sheffield Lakeland Landscape Project is part of Sheffield and Rotherham Wildlife Trust and is supported by the Heritage Lottery Fund and players of the National Lottery.
The Great Wall of Blacka
The team have been concentrating their efforts on Sheffield & Rotherham Wildlife Trust nature reserves throughout the city, including Carr House Meadows and Blacka Moor, where they’ve nicknamed the boundary wall the ‘Great Wall of Blacka’.
Drystone walling is a traditional skill and by training up our team of volunteers the project is helping to keep heritage skills alive and thriving.
With many miles of our drystone walling still in need of repair, the team clearly have a great deal of work on their hands, but as the funding for the Sheffield Lakeland Landscape Partnership comes to an end they will be one of the lasting legacies of the project.
Thank you
Sheffield & Rotherham Wildlife Trust would like to place on record our thanks to all our volunteers for your hard work, dedication and meaningful contributions.
As a small local charity we rely on members and volunteers to enable us to take action for nature and wildlife.