It's that lamb time of the year.

I visited the Turnditch Orchard yesterday to find lambs grazing on our grass and fruit trees. I don't mind them eating grass, but their munching the lower branches of the fruit trees causes a lot of long lasting damage. At least five trees and a section of new hedge have suffered damage by the lambs. The lambs come from the adjoining field. They are now big enough to graze away from their mums, but small enough to be able to get through any gaps. Last year we had no invasions having fixed all the fences.

Sheep damaged apple tree.

This year the lambs gained access through the field gate. It is a metal gate designed for cattle, but not small livestock. It has equal sized gaps across the gate and lambs easily wriggle through the gaps. A sheep gate has narrower gaps toward the base. Our own gate at the roadside is a sheep gate, otherwise those lambs might have been found wandering on the Ashbourne Road (A517). Our neighbour farmer had recognised this some years ago and had wired an old plank at the base of the gate to stop lambs wriggling through the gaps. The people using the public footpath like having a large gap at the foot of the gate to allow their dogs to pass through the gate. At some point, the plank wired to the gate has "disappeared", thus allowing the lambs to gain access to the orchard.  We had provided a "dog gate" which allowed access for dogs when the plank had been in place, but it requires 10 seconds of extra effort.

Dog gate installed between the lamb field and the orchard.

Dog gate, today, showing no sign of use

So now I've had to wire a section of stock fence to the gate to stop all animals from wriggling through the gate. The dog gate remains available, though I know the farmer isn't too keen on having dogs in a field where there are lambs. Strictly speaking, we do not have to provide access for dogs on a public footpath, just humans have a right of way on foot, but so long as no damage arises it is not a problem for us. The stiles remain for the walkers.

Gate, wired with stock fence

Electric fence energiser housing

We're building a small cabinet in the Orchard to provide security and weather protection for our new electric fence energiser. Today we excavated the base and laid a small reinforced concrete slab to provide a base for the housing cabinet. The base is not large, approximately 100 x 60 cms, so we mixed the concrete by hand from ballast and cement powder (6:1 by volume). Sam's Steps by the river provided a convenient access to fill our water buckets.  The warm humid weather and summer flies buzzing around did not make this work a pleasant experience. Once the base slab has cured we'll build a lockable housing for the energiser and its battery. There will be some additional security features to deter thieves.

After the work had been done I checked the orchard and found four young sheep lurking in a far corner close to the railway. They'd knocked over the temporary electric fence posts  to gain access to our woodland. I spent a couple of hours installing some heavy duty wooden posts, driven firmly into the ground and set up a six strand electric fence to deter these four legged marauders.

Edit 24/06/2016
I found sheep in the orchard again this morning. They'd pushed the six strand electric fence aside. These must be some mighty hungry sheep if they are prepared to tolerate the powerful 3 joule shock this fence gives. I think the problem is they are dumb juvenile sheep not yet "trained" to recognise electric fences. The older sheep steer clear once they realise it is an electric fence.

I've now ripped out the extended section of the electric fence adjacent to the railway line and replaced it with 30 metres of wire stock fence mounted on wooden posts driven in at 10 foot intervals.

I removed the plywood shuttering from the base of the energiser shed. The concrete slab is looking good.

Edit 28/06/2016
The installation of wire stock fence seems to have worked, there have been no further sheep invasions since I upgraded the fence to a permanent structure. Last night I added an insulator mounted electrified high tensile steel wire top strand above the wire stock fence to enhance the sheep resistance. I'd been trying to avoid a permanent fence as we still have to fell some trees in that area, but it seems to be the only solution to deal with the sheep.

The battle with the sheep continues

The problems with sheep from the neighbouring field continue at the Turnditch Orchard. At lunchtime I found several sheep on the orchard. They'd found yet another route into the field.  Most of the fruit trees have now suffered substantial damage from Farmer White's flock. I must admit my patience is now wearing thin, I wish he'd do something to contain his animals, it is after all his responsibility and not  mine. The sheep seem to be very hungry. 

Damage to the plum tree

Leaves stripped from one of the apple trees

One of our young plum trees has lost most of its leaves and has had branches broken by the sheep. I'll have to prune them back to avoid infection in the tree. For some reason the apple trees have fared the worst. We've effectively lost two year's growth on the trees and will probably have to buy replacements and replant. 

I've found their latest point of entry, via two sections of wire strand fence and through woodland. The electric fence has been extended to cover this latest breach. It seems the theft of the fence energiser has had unexpected consequences.

The latest invasion by the sheep

Change of plan.

We'd planned to remove the electric fence at the Turnditch orchard. The theft of the fence energiser had just accelerated the plan. However the sheep from the White's farm have been too successful at finding ways into the orchard and have caused a lot of damage to the fruit trees. I'd even had phone calls from helpful neighbours who'd tried to chase the sheep out of the orchard.

We reinstated the electric fence yesterday with an expensive new fence energiser. It was warm and humid weather when I entered the adjoining field armed with brush cutter to trim back the vegetation which had swamped the electric fence. After a couple of hours hard work my clothes were sodden with sweat, but the work was done. I guess I had to clear about 250 sq metres. 

Now any malcontent sheep will receive a powerful shock if they try to invade our orchard. 

Despite our best efforts

I noticed yesterday, while visiting the orchard in Turnditch, the sheep have finally succeeded in stripping the leaves from one of our young crab apple trees. They must have stood on their hind legs and braved a strand of barbed wire. Previously the electric fence  had kept the sheep away, but now the energiser has been stolen the sheep were able to find a way through. To be honest we should have planted it further away from the border fence in a place well out of reach of the sheep.

I doubt this tree will survive, so we will plant a new one during the winter in a different location.

Edit 20/06/2016 
Yesterday we noticed five young sheep, from Farmer White's flock, grazing in our orchard. With the kind assistance of a neighbour we managed to herd them up and return them to their field. The sheep had discovered a weak spot in the blackthorn hedge and had forced their way through. 
Now we have three young apple trees which have had their leaves stripped by the sheep. The trees damaged this time were in the middle of our orchard. I worked in the rain to patch the hedge with wire stock fence and three fence posts. This seems to have prevented further attacks, but I guess the sheep will find another route in before long.

Young visitors to the orchard

I visited the Turnditch Orchard this evening to start some preparatory work for the road side gate installation. My car was loaded with the necessary tools, but alas they did not get used. As I arrived I noticed six young sheep in the orchard eating grass. They'd invaded from the adjoining field. The skills I'd learned in my childhood on the local farms in the Buckinghamshire countryside came in to play. I was able to herd the sheep off the orchard back into their field without them panicking too much. 

They'd found two routes into the orchard. Their main route was through a rickety old wire fence which previously been protected by my electric fence, but alas no longer since the theft of the fence energiser box. The second route was via the field gate belonging to the neighbouring farm. That gate is an iron gate with just four horizontal bars rather than seven bars. It is fine to retain cattle, horses or adult sheep, but the gaps are too large to enclose exploring lambs. After a quick inspection of the extent of the problems I drove to my home to pick up my fencing equipment. Fortunately I have a spare roll of one metre high wire stock fence and some spare two metre treated wooden fence posts.

I was working until dusk to repair 20 metres of fence and install new fencing. I was able to re-use a lot of the old fence posts in place, but I ended up having to drive six new posts into the ground. Once the fence was secure I set to work on the troublesome gate. As a temporary fix I wired four metres of wire stock fence along the gate. I'd previously mentioned to my neighbouring farmer I was considering making his gate secure and he'd been happy for me to do so.

It is the farmer's responsibility to make sure his stock do not wander and cause damage, but I have to be pragmatic and take proactive action to protect the young fruit trees from marauding sheep.  I'll revisit the gate during the week and install a barrier which is more friendly to the dogs of people using the footpath. 

It would be interesting to know who has responsibility for the boundary hedge/fence and the their field gate. The farmer is a tenant of the Chatsworth Estate who actually own the land which adjoins our orchard site. I organised and funded the relaying and restoration of the blackthorn hedge. It had been neglected by previous parties. At some point part of the historic original hedge has been torn down, possibly during works to lay the sewer/water pipes or during river bridge repair work. Whichever it was, it has left us with a rickety wire fence which proved to provide no barrier to the sheep.

Planning for fence removal at the orchard

A couple of years ago we had a hedging professional on the orchard site re-laying the boundary hedge between our plot and the adjoining field. Previous owners had neglected the hedge over the years and had allowed the Blackthorn to run wild. At 11 GBP per metre it was not an insignificant investment. We needed to protect hedge from hungry sheep in its early stages of regrowing. We also needed to fill in some gaps to keep marauding sheep away from the young fruit trees. There was a real risk of damage by sheep to both the fruit trees and the relaid hedge as an earlier Blog post can attest. 

To provide this protection we installed a semi-permanent electric fence just inside in the boundary of the neighbouring field. It had driven wooden fence posts, with insulators screwed into them. The fence part was constructed with four strands of high tensile electric fence wire. The top strand was polypropylene rope with stainless steel strands interwoven. There's almost one kilometre of wiring.

The electric fence has worked out well and the hedge no longer needs any protection. The fruit trees could be damaged by the sheep, but the regrown hedge, plus some wire stockfence, is now providing an effective barrier.

The time has come to remove the electric fence. This should be a simple task were it not for the high tensile fence wire. The wire is very springy and easily tangles if not managed carefully. When delivered it was just a coil of wire contained by some soft iron wire wrapped around the coils. We had to carefully unwind the coils to avoid tangles as we laid the fence.

To help manage the recovery of the fence wire we've been busy in the workshop fabricating wooden drums/bobbins to receive the recovered fence wire. They are about one foot (30 cm) in diameter and about six inches (15 cm) wide. We've recently taken delivery of a large bandsaw in the workshop. This machine made the process of cutting circular disks of plywood for the bobbins an easy task. Air powered nail guns improved the accuracy and speed of nailing the bits together. While it is possible to buy old used plastic cable bobbins or use some old electric power cable cardboard bobbins it is quite satisfying to just build them from scrap bits of wood. It certainly is much more fun than commuting to a city office and spending the time doing boring paperwork and tedious phone conferences.

Soon we'll be drawing back the wire from the electric fences. We'll recover the gripples we used to tension the wire. The fence posts will be lifted and reused for wooden fence building further down in the orchard in the part we've yet to recover from the scrub land. The fence insulators will be recovered and stored for later use.

One lesson from all of this is that if you are considering buying a plot of land for an orchard be sure to check the state of the boundary fences. Estimate the cost of restoring the fences, hedges and walls to a good condition. It takes time and money to fix them. Sometimes your neighbours will show no interest in funding long term fixes for the fences.

The return of the sheep.

It was a busy week in the Orchard at Turnditch. Sheep have been allowed into the adjacent field to graze. Unfortunately they do seem attracted to the lush green grass in the orchard. They had found a way through the old broken fences of the plot at the thin end of the orchard. We'd prepared for this with an additional temporary wire stock fence across the untamed part of the orchard. However the sheep found a way via the Ecclesbourne railway track to access the woodland embankment. While it is the farmer's responsibility under common law to enclose his sheep to prevent them damaging other property, we had to take action to protect the embankment.

Fortunately we had a spare set of electric fence equipment, tape and posts, so we were able to create an additional barrier  of electrified tape at the railway end of the orchard and up the embankment. So far it has been wholly successful at repelling the woolly invaders. Meanwhile we have been removing the year's overgrown vegetation from the old electric fence using a powered brush cutter. The old fence will be re-energised tomorrow once the warning notices are replaced.

Some sheep remain on the verges of the railway. We've phoned both the farmer and the railway management to warn them of this situation.

Speaking of invaders on the orchard we discovered that people have been cutting back some branches on the far end of the orchard embankment. We presume it is volunteers from the Ecclesbourne Railway making an unauthorised path through our land. Let's hope they don't try to climb the new electric fence now guarding that area.  It is energised to 8000 volts which is very painful but safe to touch. We have posted a warning notice close to where they appear to access the embankment from the road.

There is a long standing informal agreement we allow the neighbouring farmer access through to his field by the track next to the riverbank. He'd lost the key we'd given him for the road gate padlock, but we gave him another last week so he could get to his sheep. Yesterday we found he'd been through with a heavy tractor which was not too unreasonable, but unfortunately the weight of the machine has damaged the soft riverbank when he manoeuvred too close to the edge. We'll need to drive some wooden piles into the bank to reinforce it and prevent further damage. In the longer term we will grow some willow spilings in that part of the bank to provide strengthening.

Sheep Alert at the Orchard

We were driving back from shopping in Ashbourne and travelled past the orchard site. We noticed that sheep had appeared in the adjoining field. I had to rush back and perform some urgent fencing work to strengthen the weaker parts of the hedge between the fields. At the moment the electric fence is out of commission and there is a risk that sheep could stray into the orchard and damage the young trees. In theory the owner of the sheep has the responsibility to provide fencing ensure his animals don't stray on to our land, but he doesn't have a great history in that respect.

This afternoon I drove ten fence posts into the ground and installed about sixty feet (18 Metres) of wire stock fence.


Update 6th Feb 2016: So far no sheep on the orchard. My efforts paid off.

Dead lamb in the river

While I was loading the field trimming machine into the back of my car yesterday, after a grass cutting session at the Orchard, I noticed there was a dead lamb at the edge of the river. The animal looked to be about 3-4 weeks old and was marked with a blue number "8" on its back. I presume it was caught in the river upstream and drowned before being washed down. We've had a few days recently when the rain was heavy causing the river levels to swell.

I'm not sure who's responsibility it is to deal with the carcase. It's not our property and there are strict rules for the correct disposal of dead farm animals. These usually involve the services of a specialist contractor.

Electric fence at the orchard

We're planning to install an electric fence at the orchard during the next two weeks. It will be positioned outside of the recently laid hedge on the field side of the orchard. The wire fence at the road side will not be electrified. The fence will be of a semi-permanent construction running for approximately 100 metres, with wooden posts spaced at 10-15 metres. There will be  temporary green plastic push-in posts supporting the wire between the wooden posts. Once the hedge has grown strong enough to repel browsing farm animals the fence will be removed.

The fence will be built using five strands of galvanised braided wire (1.6 mm) and a top strand of white poly-electric fence rope. The fence design is is aimed to prevent sheep from damaging the hedge or the fruit trees in the orchard. They did a lot of damage last winter.

The fence will have a powerful charge capable of penetrating the insulating wool of the sheep, probably in the region of 8000V. It is about twice the power needed for a electric fence configured for horses/cows. While the charge on the fence is not dangerous it would be very unpleasant for you if you touch the fence and get a shock. It would be similarly unpleasant for a dog.

We'll be labelling the fence according to the regulations. It will be possible to access it from the public footpath if you wander off the path and trespass into the farmer's field. However it will not affect access to the public path.

The legislation sets out specific safety regulations which must be adhered to.  These are as follows:

• Every electric fence must carry a suitable warning sign:
  • The sign should have the size of at least 100mm x 200mm.
  • It is recommended that the basic colour of the sign be yellow with black inscription and should use the words "ELECTRIC FENCE".
  • The inscription shall be permanent, inscribed on both sides and have a height of at least 25mm.
• An electric fence when installed in such a position that members of the public might reasonably be expected to touch it, such as along a public road or highway or as a boundary fence, should be identified by a number of warning signs (as explained above) which must be clamped to the fence wires at intervals recommended to be of approximately 10m to 50m, but not exceeding 90m.
• A clear warning notice should also be fitted at every point where persons may have ready access to the electric wires, rope or tape. The notice should bear the words 'LIVE WIRES' in block letters not less than 13mm high, the letters should be red on a white background and the size of each notice should be not less than 62mm x 50mm overall.

Planting trees

We had a busy day in the orchard site yesterday planting most of the fruit trees. We'd planted the maiden bare root apple/cherry trees a couple of days ago. The first thing was to transport the trees in their pots from where they'd been overwintering in our garden. The buds were beginning to sprout so we had to transport them carefully two at a time in the back of our estate car from Belper. It took a total of five return trips. 

Next we visited Lester Lowe for a bundle of 50 hedging stakes which we'll use to provide to provide protective enclosures for the trees. They are about 20 mm square and 150 cm tall with tanelised sawn wood. They should last for the first few years of the tree's lives after which the trees should be tall enough and tough enough to resist the predations of any marauding sheep who sneak into the orchard. Hopefully by then our newly laid hedges will be providing some protection too.

We had a good three hours hard work, assisted by our German Shepherd Dog, digging holes and driving fencing stakes to provide the new home for the trees. The heavy post knocker we purchased last year has proved to be a great investment. The bottom of each pit was lined with a mix of coarse sand and manure compost to give the trees  a bit of a head start. We planted all but three of the fruit trees. We'll complete the tree planting today, then during the next week we'll build the protective enclosures for the trees. It is interesting to hear the comments of people walking by on the Ashbourne Road, clearly there is some interest in the progress of the  project from our neighbours.

Elka the GSD puppy discovered a mud wallow

We had a bonus in the shape of a walnut tree given to us by our neighbours in Belper. The tree is about four years old and about 2 metres tall. This also has been planted in the orchard. It took a rather large hole to accommodate the root ball! Our dog Rocky has been left to guard this tree.

It looks like all of the hundred willow wands we planted are sprouting new leaves in the grove we planted earlier this year. We should be able to harvest some of these for the spilling work on the river bank next  Autumn.

In many places we found clay and builders rubble which had been dumped on the land during previous ownership. Odd garden flowers such as crocus are appearing on the land. This is a clear sign of dumping which has effectively ruined the land for agricultural purposes. However the original alluvial soil is good and should be good for the trees of the orchard. I'm sure we'll build quite a large rubble heap over the years as we extract bricks from the soil.

Hedging started at the Orchard.

We called in at a local agricultural and building supplies merchant (Lester Lowe) yesterday afternoon to pick up a couple of bundles of fencing stakes. The merchant offers cracking good value for fencing timber. We'd calculated we'd need something in the order of 100 stakes. We plan to use some for staking the fruit trees and also providing fence enclosures for the trees. Our hedging contractor Adrian also mentioned he needed a few stakes. The stakes are rough sawn untreated wood about 1.5 metres in length and about 4 cm square. The first problem we faced was getting them to the site as we didn't want to hang around awaiting a delivery, so we took our Freelander car to the Lester Low site. With the back seats folded down we just managed to cram the 100 stakes into the back of the vehicle and squeeze the door shut.

Trees damaged by the sheep

We drove on to the Turnditch site to drop off the stakes. We found Adrian working on the site starting to clear some of the overgrown hedgerow ready for laying. He was quite concerned about the potential damage caused by the sheep chewing the bark of the bushes he'd cut down. They'd already damaged some hawthorn, but left the blackthorn alone. It looks like we need to install a temporary stock fence on our neighbours land to protect the hedge from the sheep for a few months. We've tried to contact the neighbouring farmer last night to discuss the options.  Oh the joys of restoring farmland, more expense!

Adrian also mentioned the gully under the embankment. His thoughts were that we could see some flood waters coming through from the other side of the road if the Ecclesbourne River flooded those fields with the heavy winter rains. He'd found the location where he was working had become quite boggy with the action of the sheep hooves and the wet conditions.

The hungry horde

We called by the orchard site on Boxing Day to find about 15 sheep from the adjoining field. We gently herded them back, but had no equipment with us to fix the fence problem. They'd found new gaps. further along the field from our last repair. The sheep are clearly very hungry having destroyed many wild tree saplings and ring barked some other hedge trees too. The branches and logs we'd left from the last trimming work have been completely stripped. Most of the ewes have babies on-board, so we can't be aggressive with them. The soil is getting quite damaged from their hooves, but the sheep have removed a lot of the brush we were intending cut anyway saving us some work.

The field "mown" by the sheep.

We'll pay another visit this week to patch the holes in the fencing. I'm quite pleased we haven't planted the orchard trees or we'd be looking at having to replace some expensive fruit tree. We're suffering from the neglect of the land by previous owners.

We discovered a small stone lined entrance of a tunnel/culvert (about one metre in diameter) running under the road bridge embankment. We think it is the route of a small stream which shows on some of the older maps but the stream bed across our land has been mostly filled in at some point in the past 150 years. From the style of stone work I'd guess it was built at the same time as the railway bridge. In the autumn this tunnel entrance was hidden from view by a large rose bush and blackthorn. We can see an old iron grate a couple of metres into the tunnel presumably installed to stop animals straying up.

Residue of stream bed running across orchard site

Edit 29/12/13: We had a chat with the farmer about the sheep. The four legged demolition machines are just being stubborn. There is plenty of food and mineral supplements for them at the other end of their field. They just love ash tree bark! We also called to let them know are hedging contractor is going to start work today on renovating/relaying the hedge between our fields. They were pleased to learn that we are not ripping out the old hedge and replacing it with fencing.

Sheep 1 Orchard Site 0

We visited the site today and found three sheep on the land. Our fence repair is intact so they must have found another route on to the land. They soon retreated when we started a chain saw to do some work. We don't want to panic them because at this time of the year they are probably pregnant. 

We discovered the sheep had gnawed the bark from some off the branches we'd felled a couple of weeks ago. I'd imagine that unprotected fruit trees would suffer the same fate.

We spend a couple of hours cutting down small trees and working to tidy the embankment. It was mostly ash and hawthorn, but now there is a large pile of branches which need trimming and brushwood to burn or turn into wood chippings. It was hard work, with loads of thorns grabbing at us, but the result was satisfying. We removed four trees which were leaning over the fence and threatening long term problems. We cut their bases low in the normal coppicing style. It's far better to remove them now rather than waiting until the fruit trees are established.

Sheep Damage

In the picture you can see some of the damage caused to an Ash tree and an Elderberry shrub. The sheep have completely debarked a long section on each tree. Those trees will need to be dut down and coppiced to see if they'll recover.


Edit: 22/12/13 We met with Adrian, the guy who's going to lay the hedges. He told us sheep love to eat the bark from ash tree branches. Sure enough it was those branches in the log pile which the sheep had chewed.

Sheep expelled

We are now ready to plant the fruit trees, but they need protecting from sheep incursion. Today we effected a repair to the hedge where the sheep had created a trail via a hole in the hedge from the adjacent field. This morning there were none of the woolly beasts to be found in the orchard site, they're probably grazing elsewhere. Yesterday there were several sheep in our field.  We don't mind their presence particularly, but we need to keep them out when the fruit trees are planted,

The hedge is in a poor state, both overgrown and also a lot of dead wood after years of neglect. Blackthorn really is nasty stuff to battle through when fixing stock fence in place! What appeared to be a small gap took four metres of wire stock fencing and some fence posts but the gap is now fixed. This will be a temporary repair until the hedge is relaid during the winter.

We'll be creating stock fence wire enclosures for each tree that we plant. These enclosures will provide protection for the fruit tree saplings if any sheep manage to find another route into the field. Next to consider is protecting the trees from rabbits! Maybe some plastic sleeving is required. We've delivered a heap of fence posts to the site ready for the tree enclosures.

We'd noticed a 5 metre elm tree which had been snapped by last week's winds. It was in an awkward position overhanging the River Ecclesbourne. To simply cut it down would have caused it to fall into the river. In the end we attached a long rope and, from a position of safety, winched the broken top half of the tree down and away from the river. The dead tree top is now pile of logs on our wood heap and I now have greater confidence in my rusty skills of creating eye splices in ropes.

A large ash branch had fallen in the winds and was projecting over the roadside pavement. It was hung up in other branches and too heavy to pull down safely. We chain-sawed it into sections in situ and removed the individual pieces. For ash wood, it was surprisingly heavy. 

After the work we called in to the local butcher Anthony Andrews to buy some meat for our Christmas Open day. It is really pleasing to find such a good butcher's shop in the locality. We've not been disappointed so far.

We've appointed a fencing contractor to install a roadside stock fence. Over the next couple of years we'll rejuvenate the old hedge with the intention of having it relaid and subsequent removal of the wire stock fence.


ps: The following day. Despite the efforts to protect the trees from sheep/rabbits we ignored the far greater risk. Wolf damage!  We've temporarily stored the trees in our back garden. This morning we discovered our German Shepherd 6 month old puppy had chewed off the top of one of the apple saplings. Grrr!

Fixing the hedges

Now the leaves have dropped at the the autumn (fall) frosts we are able to the see the extent of the neglect of the hedges by the previous owner(s). It is outside of our abilities to quickly repair the fences so we've asked a couple of fencing contractors to quote for installing a stock wire fence next to the roadside hedge. It will provide some security and also prevent animals straying.

We've accepted a quote from Adrian Rochford to have the field side hedge (between and the adjoining fields) restored and layed in a traditional Derbyshire/Stafford style. Work should start in a couple of weeks.

We've also taken delivery of the first trees for the orchard. We'll be planting them soon, but first we'll need to patch a couple of gaps in the fence. Currently sheep are straying into the area and would no doubt do some damage to the young trees.

Last week's storm did some damage and snapped some of the dead trees. I'll be visiting with the chainsaw to tidy the mess. Some of it will have to be winched from the place it overhangs the River Ecclesbourne. More timber for the firewood pile.

We've placed a small notice on the gate post providing brief details of the project and a link to this site.

Some vandalism at the Turnditch Orchard

We arrived on Turnditch site this morning to find the gate lock to our land had been vandalised. One of the locks had been smashed off the chain and an eye-bolt used as a hasp had been damaged beyond repair. The public footpath remains unrestricted by us with the stile in its original condition. The local farmer who has documented right of access to the adjoining fields has been warned we've changed the locks and we've provided them with a set of keys for the new locks. 

Vandalised gate lock at Turnditch Orchard

You can see the hammer marks on the old stone gate pillar. Clearly someone has taken a hammer to the old lock and hasp to gain access to the land. We wonder why they think they have the right to do this? There were some sheep hoof marks in the access route which had not been there before so it may be that someone has been moving sheep, possibly theft/rustling  through our land.

Edit: Outcome. It was a young labourer working for the farmer. They'd had to move the sheep as a matter of urgency. He panicked and chose a "quick" fix when he didn't have the key for the padlock. Just one of those joys of ownership.