Earlier this month we had contractors on site at Rectory Wood, looking at a potentially broken culvert.

A culvert is a structure that allows water to flow under a road, railroad, trail, or similar obstruction by way of a covered channel or pipeline that allows a watercourse or drainage to run from one side to the other. As well as being an important feature of land management, it can also provide a wildlife corridor for many species.

Typically embedded so as to be surrounded by soil, our culvert at Rectory Wood is encased by sandbags.

Unfortunately on closer inspection is became clear that the sandbag headwall had actually collapsed. Blocked culverts can cause serious damage to the surrounding land by affecting water levels, and impact important habitats as well as damaging property and infrastructure.

Another consideration in this instance was the safety of our visitors: the fencing - which was installed to stop visitors falling into the ditch - was also falling in, and because the headwall was no longer structurally sound the path over the ditch had also started caving in.

Thankfully this was spotted early before too much damage had been caused, and the contractors were able to reconstruct the headwall, repair the path and install a new fence to restore this area to it's former glory!

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Ongoing site maintenance in our Community Woodlands is a huge part of the work we do looking after the Forest. As we plant more trees and the Forest grows we'll need your support more than ever - please join us and sign up for a small monthly donation (just over £1 per week):

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