Friends of Bernards Heath made a big effort to start clearing paths at Beech Bottom Dyke on Saturday morning. Thank you everyone who took part.
Where, and what is Beech Bottom Dyke? It is a major pre-Roman ancient earth work that begins at the junction of Townsend Drive and Batchwood Drive and runs for the first part parallel to Beech Road, then on across Valley Road to the railway embankment. The Dyke is a Scheduled Ancient Monument (SAM) under the protection of Historic England and owned and managed by St Albans District Council. The Google aerial view below makes the prominent part of the location clear and shows where we carried out path clearance work. Read more about the Dyke here.
Beech Bottom Dyke was the subject of a Greenspace Action Plan (GAP) to improve public access and signage in April 2014, but sadly nothing has been done to implement the this to date. FoBH feels that the very neglected Dyke deserves attention, and that the clearance of fallen trees and undergrowth would be a good start. This was done and several bags of litter were also removed.
Take a look at what we did – of course, no digging was allowed on this ancient site.
Brambles and other undergrowth along the path on the top of the southern bank were cleared. We hope to continue later in the summer.
Photos: DP