Shropshire and Staffordshire National Trust Volunteers

Workday leader Peter reports:

For the first Sunday of 2020 SSNTV returned to Morville Hall to complete some of the tasks which we had started the Sunday before Christmas (…now seems such a long way off!) and remove some new ones from the long list of jobs which the new Hall tenants have!

With a good weather forecast and armed with prior knowledge of the drinks and fabulous homemade cakes that would await us from Melanie’s kitchen, no less than fifteen SSNTV’ers came out to help restore (or was it cause destruction) in the garden.

Soon work on four tasks was underway:

Taming rampant roses bushes was the main feature of the day’s performance – with at least five large overgrown bushes spreading across the site.  In two of these cases, the shrubs were also climbing over head height and so came down to within 50cm of the ground (was that a bit much, Ed!!) – which meant a constant supply for the fire all day.

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We lit the bonfire held over from our 2019 visit with sterling work to get the fire established, as volumes of material keep arriving and the damp stuff was conquered, not least with help from two large Christmas trees from the Hall.

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Beside the old swimming pool, we also tackled an overgrown hedge that spread its tentacles both skywards and outwards in enormous proportions – even its roots were not safe from attention, as slabs were lifted and pickaxes wielded.

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The final task was to dig over four former herb beds and reveal their brick edgings. This unfortunately proved beyond our capabilities on the day, despite Mags putting in a sterling effort, with little sign of where she had been toiling!

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With two stops for cake a good day was had by all – thanks to our hosts for that!  Melanie and Andrew expressed themselves pleased by the day’s work, as well as by how much we had achieved – hence they are already looking forward to our next return visit!