Volunteers got their feet wet repairing a watergate at High Borrowdale recently. The conservation day on Friends of the Lake District's land at Borrowdale, north east of Kendal, was organised to keep sheep and deer off an area of new woodland.

The woodland, containing native oak, ash, elder, hawthorn, rowan, and holly, was planted five years ago. The young trees all need protection from grazing until they are well established.

14 volunteers took part in the day, which began with herding sheep out of the woodland, and went on to repairing the watergate, and rebuilding 6m of dry stone wall, to keep animals out.

They also cleared gutters on the cow shed roof and pulled up ragwort, an invasive weed, as well as restaking tree stakes that had been blown over by the wind.

Jan Darrall, Policy Officer at Friends of the Lake District said: ‘The volunteers have done a great job of repairing the watergate and dry stone walls to protect our woodland from animals grazing. We rely on our volunteers to help keep Borrowdale beautiful so that everybody can enjoy it. ‘

Friends of the Lake District bought High Borrowdale in 2002, to enhance the landscape and protect it from future inappropriate development. Since then it has repaired 5km of dry stone walls, repaired three buildings, planted 10,000 new trees in two new sections of woodland, and created an upland hay meadow. The remote and beautiful valley was recently saved from the threat of a tourist development at Low Borrowdale.

The whole site is open access to the public, and Friends of the Lake District welcome the public on to it for talks and schools visits, and hold regular volunteer conservation days. We welcome anyone who wishes to volunteer with us.

To find out more or to volunteer, please phone 01539 720788 or see our website www.fld.org.uk/WHAT-WE-DO/high-borrowdale.html