The Trust has been seeking funding to carry out this essential work for the last two years and has now secured a Higher Level Stewardship agreement for the nature reserve, which allowed this work to go ahead.

The problem first arose when a tree was blown over and caused a land slip below the former railway track bed, taking with it a large section of the 20’ high revetment wall, as you can see on the picture on the left. The top of the land slip dramatically cut back towards the path of the popular wildlife walk, only just stopping at the footings of the safety fence that was installed by the Trust a few years before.

Now the trees on top of the revetment have been felled to prevent it from happening again. A local rope access team took out a strip of trees on the top of the wall  - approximately 75 metres in length and five metres wide. It was death-defying work due to instability of the revetment, but it all went without a hitch.

Andrew Walter, Nature Reserves Officer for Smardale Gill, said, ‘By coppicing the trees the roots will not shake the revetment wall to such an extent. The wall is, however, in a very poor state of repair and will inevitably fall down over time, but now we hope in a less dramatic and safer manner. Repairs would be prohibitively expensive, but the track has been surveyed and it looks unlikely that it will be lost all together. The path will be moved across slightly onto firmer foundations and the safety fence will be moved further back from the slope and revetment wall to keep people away from danger. There will be some temporary disturbance to the area but it will be blossoming with wildlife again in no time.’

The works are part of a much larger program of access improvements, which will make the footpath suitable for wheelchairs from the entrance near Smardale Hall to the centre of the nature reserve. This will allow visitors to experience the fantastic woodland and wildflower-rich calcareous grassland habitats as well as the magnificent scenery and railway architecture on route.