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Explore | Escape | Enjoy!
- Sorrowlessfield Improvements Project 2014 -
Sorrowlessfield path is a popular walk often used to complete a circular walk from the village and which also provides access to other routes across the busy A68.
It became increasingly wet and muddy because of water run off from the hillside, made worse by walkers moving around the area which widened and enlarged the problem areas.
Conditions underfoot put many people off and our project, grant funded by Paths for All, allowed us to raise the walking surface above the wet areas by levelling, laying membrane and topping with tons of hardcore material.
We put two gabion baskets at the footbridge over the burn to strengthen the eroding banking that threatened its stability.
The volunteers also top dressed the muddy approaches to the Sorrowlessfield / Cowdenknowes footbridge over the Leader Water, repaired the handrails and some supports - and gave it a lick of paint!
The grant funding meant we were also able to build a hardcore off-road walkway at Leaderfoot to link the Jubilee and Leader Water paths, improving walker safety.
Most of the work had been scheduled to be done manually but the plan changed when Charlie and Danny, who own machinery, offered to move the hardcore along the path. It meant a major reduction in the time and physical effort needed to achieve our goal.
The team still put in a hard shift of nearly 200 hours, spreading more than 25 ton of hardcore and 2 ton of gabion stone as well as preparatory and tidy-up work.