What is this?

I’ve spent a week with the North Pennines on work experience. We’ve done a LOT, and it’s been really nice to get out of the classroom for the week and up into the pennines. Plus I’ve slept better than I have in months! From right of way maintenance to archaeology we’ve had a whistle stop tour of the various projects undertaken by the national landscape. There was never a dull moment (well, maybe stock counting).

We spent the first day creating a walk for Naturefest. More information on this can be found in Malachi’s post. I’d like to focus more on the waterfall we visited while designing this trail. Summerhill Force (found near Bowlees) is to my mind interesting for two reasons. Firstly it shows really well how the waterfall formed. I’ve labelled the layer of shale that erodes back forming an overhang. Right up to the point where the limestone crashes down into the plunge pool below. Secondly there is a story attached to it, according to the tale an outlaw called Gibson hit behind the waterfall while running from the law. While people from the village brought him food. I certainly wouldn’t recommend living in ‘Gibsons Cave’, but it’s a good story none the less.

Another place we looked at while designing the walk was the quarry near Bowlees. While there we looked at access and walking but also at the place itself (and its importance) more specifically we looked at the possibility of planting some Rock whitebeam in the quarry. A highly endangered tree, we scoped out where on day three, but Monday was when we first heard of the idea.

On the first two days of the week we ate our lunch at outside at Bowlees Visitor Centre. And, although we were surrounded by birds trying to steal our sandwiches, one chaffinch in particular seemed particularly interested in our lunch. It sat around watching us eat for at least 15 minutes both days, often trying different plans of attack on our food.

On day 2 we spent most of the day repairing a bridge found along the Pennine Way. This began by using fencing pliers and a hammer to remove the remains of the old wire used to provide grip, before hammering nails in to keep its replacement in position. This sort of maintenance happens all the time, particularly along the ways busiest section, and its a tough job keeping it in good nick.

On the third day we moved away from Bowlees and further up into Teesdale, removing tree guards found up there. We worked out way down the hedge of spiky hawthorn bushes before realising the mess we’d made behind us! A lunch break up among the lapwings helped to ready us for an afternoon of crawling through prickles to clear up.

Surprisingly enough the weather held and the sun shone down on us as the tree guards were packed up. Ultimately we were successful, but not without being prickled by many, many thorns. Having carried the bag of tree guards back to the truck there was some risk that they would fly out of the pickup, it was quite a nervous drive back as they shifted about in the wind.

Day four found us at and archaeological site with the Land of Lead and Silver project. It was an interesting day and involved a lot of information and new techniques to learn. One of the main challenges for me was visualising what the mine area would have looked like when it was still standing, but the site was full of things to find and uncover (and an interpretation board helped a lot).

This image shows the area we looked at in more detail, we spent a long time drawing to scale drawings of the rocks we could see on the surface and then took pictures from many angles, all recorded in a table. Another technique we used was photogrammetry, both at that site and on the way back, where we took some time to take the needed pictures for a photogrammetry model of a structure near Rookhope Arch that had never been looked at like in that way before. Overall it was a very interesting day, although it was very full of new things to learn.

Noah H, Year 10, Wolsingham School

workexperience