Conservation Task at former station

Clearing vegetation revealed the original platform edge of the station which last saw trains in 1965

In early December a small team of volunteers known as ‘The Cinders’ met up to carry out conservation work at an old station near Robin Hoods Bay.

Fyling Hall Station was one of the stops on the former railway line between Scarborough and Whitby, which is now a popular walking and riding route for local people and visitors alike. The Old Railway Line, as it is known locally was branded ‘The Cinder Track’ a few years ago in a nod to its original surfacing material.

The work party originates from a new partnership between the North York Moors National Park and Scarborough Borough Council to encourage conservation volunteering along the 21.5 mile route. A key objective of the collaboration is to harness the successful volunteering formula developed by the National Park and target the restoration of the most valuable habitats along the old railway track. The initiative will focus efforts on the patches of trackside land with botanical or other species interest, such as wildflower rich grassland that has suffered from lack of management. The new volunteer group will be deployed at the very best sites along the Cinder Track for flora and fauna and will return annually to manage specific sites where the habitats need a little extra conservation effort to restore their botanical potential.

Tools and instruction are provided. Volunteers provide the muscle.

With the National Park having so many successful volunteering groups already thriving, the Borough Council is really excited to launch this joint initiative. A great deal of interest and passion for the Cinder Track was demonstrated by local people as a result of recent consultations on a restoration plan. The Cinders task programme offers a brand new opportunity for local people to volunteer to improve their much-loved route.

This month’s work focussed on the old platforms lying adjacent to the Cinder Track permissive bridleway. They had become so overgrown that people could walk right past without recognising their former purpose. The verges at the old station are also a habitat for a scarce type of orchid called the Broad-Leaved Helleborine, but have become colonized by brambles in recent years, so work also focussed on improving habitat for this botanical interest too.

By training as a Task Day Leader you could help to run one of the future Cinders tasks

Eight volunteers cleared a pathway along the old track bed so that people can see and appreciate the platform structure. They also carried out vegetation management for ground flora. It was particularly pleasing to see Broad Leaved Helleborine bearing seed and Sweet Woodruff as well as violets among the wildflowers waiting to capitalise upon the newly cleared areas.

The platform itself is now more visible and more accessible, with a walking path along the old track bed where trains once pulled up. A little more clearance work is needed to make it possible to walk along the top of the old platform but we tried to strike a balance between opening the site up and retaining the overgrown, ivy-clad charm. Who knows, maybe next spring we shall see more Helleborines at the station?

The station platform in summer 2018, illustrates how overgrown it had become

There are openings for more volunteers to join the group as well as for those with previous experience to train as volunteer ‘task day leaders’ (Free training organised by the National Park). The next task will be early in the new year. Feel free to come along and give it a try. There is no obligation to attend regularly, though we hope you want to. The only requirement is to bring a packed lunch and some old clothes and sensible footwear. All instruction and tools are provided as well as fresh air, good company and a little ecological insight about the species we are helping to benefit thrown into the bargain.

An old mattock head was found half-buried on the platform.

Interested volunteers are invited to register with the North York Moors National Park volunteers service, so that they can be notified of future tasks and receive their personal login for the My Volunteer portal. Email the volunteering team at the National Park on volunteers@northyorkmoors.org.uk.

The benefit of registering is that ‘My Volunteer’ alerts you to further opportunities as soon as they are posted on the system, both for the Cinder Track and across the National Park. The National Park’s dedicated volunteer coordinators, Chris and Jo will be happy to explain how it all works and take you through the registration process.

Voles and Vols at Hawsker

A group of volunteers did a sterling job today out on the Cinder Track at Hawsker Sidings, nr Whitby, clearing a grassland site with some excellent botanical interest. The task was supported by North York Moors National Park, Scarborough Borough Council and Whitby Naturalists Club, with volunteers from the local community and the National Park volunteering service.

Over lunch a discussion about the botanical interest of the site was rather upstaged by a very confiding Field Vole who scampered, without a care, among the rucksacks looking for morsels. This new ‘vole-unteer’ appeared to be very happy despite the attention of many camera phones thrust into its vicinity and certainly made for a memorable few minutes of nature appreciation before work resumed.

The sidings are an important fragment of species-rich grassland beside the old railway line, where strip of flower-rich meadow has developed at Hawsker, (near to Northcliffe and Seaview Caravan Park). It is a few miles south of Whitby on the former Scarborough to Whitby Railway route – now a popular permissive bridleway called The Cinder Track.

A small but keen group of volunteers picked up loppers, rakes, bowsaws and hayforks to clear recently mown vegetation and to prune back an encroaching hedgerow which is shading some of the grassland flora. About half the vols were new to conservation volunteering and half had volunteered before with the National Park so it was an ideal mix.

The work party, which continued until around 3pm, involved raking and gathering-up arisings on the fragile ground following a cut with a tractor-mounted mechanical flail by the Council’s Parks Department. Some pruning of the adjacent hedgerow was also carried out to expose parts of the grassland becoming shaded by encroaching hawthorn. Numbers only just made double figures but the groups achieved a great deal, not only gathering up all the hay, but also cutting back some scallop-shaped bays in the hedge line to help the flora and create nice sheltered microclimates for insects such as butterflies.

Another task is planned at the site in mid October – date to be advised. Please do come along – tools, instruction and good company are provided! Please contact tim.burkinshaw@scarborough.gov.uk to find out more or register interesting this or other tasks on the Cinder Track. We hope to meet plenty more vols (and voles) at subsequent work parties up and down the old railway line.

Helleborine Conservation Task

A pleasing turnout of volunteers responded to an appeal to ‘Help the Helleborines’ on the Cinder Track near Middlewood Lane, Fylingthorpe. The conservation task to benefit the plants, a type of uncommon orchid, had to be postponed for a week, due to the arrival of the ‘Beast from the East’, and the forecast for the revised date was not promising.  However, 18 people spent two hours clearing brambles, constructing habitat piles and creating seeding areas on the slopes of the cutting, and the threatened rain didn’t appear.  Local people were helped by Whitby Naturalists and National Park volunteers.  Bernie McLinden, National Park Senior Coast Ranger, and Tim Burkinshaw, SBC Ecologist, were both pleased with the work achieved, and impressed with the strength of support for conserving this Cinder Track habitat.

As a result of the task, there are more areas where helleborine seedlings can grow, mature plants can thrive unimpeded by bramble and other brash, and the habitat piles will provide refuges for other wildlife. Helleborines are long lived plants, and it will be a few years before any new plants appear, but everyone should be able to enjoy better visibility of the existing plants this summer.

Many thanks to all who helped. It is hoped that this task can be a blueprint for further conservation and habitat enhancement efforts joining forces with National Park and local community volunteers along the old railway line.

Wendy English, (Whitby Naturalists – Botany Recorder) March 2018

 

Update June 2018

An example of one of a helleborine growing strongly in one of the areas cleared by the work party back in March (image from  Twitter feed of @WhitbyNats)

You may also like to read these recent posts about the Cinder Track elsewhere on the blog:

The Cinder Track  and Botanical report unearthed

 

Botanical report unearthed

Recently  an old botanical survey report dating from 1995 came to light in a dusty workshop at Scarborough Borough Council’s Parks depot. The original report, now scanned electronically into a series of pdfs was authored by a botanist by the name of Ken Trewen and includes details of plant species, including grasses and ferns along mapped stretches of the old railway line, between Whitby and Scarborough, designated as a multi-user traffic free path. See The Cinder Track Case Study for more on this route.

The report, commissioned by Scarborough Borough Council in 1995 was all but forgotten about, but has been shared with local naturalists who might be interested to see what botanical treasures lurked in the trackside undergrowth over two decades ago and may wish to venture along the path to compare the current flora.

The wildlife corridor which the old railway line offers is recognized widely in the local community as a vital part of the line’s legacy and will inform some guiding principles in the aspirations of the Local Authority to improve access and enjoyment of the route by people living nearby and people visiting the area.

The links below comprise the scanned Trewen botanical report, two parts typed report pages and one part the scans of the maps annotated with the survey sections along the route.

DISUSED RAILWAY LINE- WHITBY TO SCARBOROUGH pp1-54

DISUSED RAILWAY LINE – WHITBY TO SCARBOROUGH pp55-99

DISUSED RAILWAY LINE – WHITBY TO SCARBOROUGH maps Large pdf file 16Mb