Posts Tagged ‘benthall hall’

BENTHALL HALL – 8th May – Workday

Posted in National Trust Volunteering, tagged , on May 10, 2022|

Workday leader Matt reports: A gloriously sunny Sunday saw a good number of the SSNTV group returning to Benthall Hall to work with Head Gardner Nick on a trio of summer garden jobs, but with the promise of an extra Benthall Bonus at the end of the workday (more on this later..)

The jobs that Nick had lined up for us were working on improving the garden paths (by digging out the soil and gravel, riddling the mix to separate the gravel and re-spreading it onto the paths – as we started last year), filling in the potholes along the track by the farm, and weeding/cleaning out the bricks at the back of the house

The keen volunteers divided themselves up amongst the jobs on offer and cracked on with the necessary work enjoying the nice weather and usual banter

Cake O’clock became Cake and Cookie O’clock, thanks to Chris’ donation of his bargain 25p cookies (yum, yum!!), and we all reconvened on the terrace to enjoy a bite and a brew, along with a potential new group member who was also looking for a fair share of cake!

As the path crew had almost completed the digging out phase, it was time for Nick to roll out our old favourite and the “Destroyer of Peaceful Sunday Afternoons”, namely the gravel riddling machine, and just in time for the afternoon visitors to “enjoy” it, yay!!

“Destroyer of Peaceful Sunday Afternoons”

Following a return visit to the terrace for a very civilized lunchtime and another round of tea making and subsequent washing up, due to the Benthall dishwasher being broken (big thanks to Lucy for her extra pair of washing up/drying up hands), all of the crews were back to working hard, but with the brick crew “cheekily” seconding/coercing/kidnapping * Neil to their job for the afternoon (*chose the most appropriate option)

With the workday drawing to a close, all of the worksites were looking great, so we packed the tools away and it was time for the promised Benthall Bonus!

BENTHALL BONUS

As part of the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee celebrations, Nick advised us that the whole of Benthall Edge has been designated as one of the “Queens Green Canopy” woodlands (there have been a total of 70 woodlands designated nationwide). This is also combined with national tree planting schemes and the designation of 70 ancient individual trees (see website here for more details https://queensgreencanopy.org/ancient-trees-and-ancient-woodland/70-ancient-trees-and-70-ancient-woodlands/)

green canopy

The Benthall Edge designation reads

So as a celebration of this success for Benthall Edge, Nick very kindly took us down into the woodland for a nice and relaxing walk to enjoy the “Green Canopy” in all its spring glory.

Once again a huge thanks to all of the volunteers for coming out and working so hard and to Nick for giving us the usual fantastic welcome, support and the extra “Benthall Bonus”

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Volunteer Hours 2014/2015

Posted in National Trust Volunteering, tagged , , on October 4, 2015|

This year we find the group celebrating it’s 35th Birthday. We will celebrate with a huge bonfire party later this year. It’s great to hear that the group continues to contribute a significant number of volunteer hours to the National Trust. Our volunteer hours and stats for the year September 2014 to August 2015 were announced on Saturday, during our AGM. The results are always impressive – lots of hard work translates into a huge number of volunteer hours for the National Trust.

Figures are from 1st Sept 2014 to 31st Aug 2015:

  • total volunteer hours 3,027.25
  • 60 people volunteered with the group
  • we arranged 62 workdays at 13 different National Trust properties
  • average number of volunteers per workday  8

Where did we spend our time? The top 3 sites measured by hours worked are as follows:

  • Dudmaston (gardens and woodland)
  • Wenlock Edge
  • Benthall Hall

Matt Hinton topped the hours chart again this year with 309.75hours. Well done Matt.

A big thank you to all who contributed volunteer hours and to those who do committee work and workday leading, ensuring that the group continues to flourish.

 

If you’d like to add a few volunteer hours to next year’s total, why not join us for a workday? Our current list of workdays can be found on our EVENTS page. Pick a day and CONTACT US. Let’s make the coming year a bigger and better success.

 

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Volunteer Hours 2013/2014

Posted in National Trust Volunteering, tagged , , on September 29, 2014|

Drum roll please….

Our volunteer hours and stats for the year September 2013 to August 2014 were announced on Saturday, during our AGM. The results are always impressive – lots of hard work translates into a huge number of volunteer hours for the National Trust.

Figures are from 1st Sept 2013 to 31st Aug 2014:

  • total volunteer hours 3,068.75
  • 73 people volunteered with the group
  • we arranged 66  workdays at 15 different National Trust properties
  • average number of volunteers per workday  9

Where did we spend our time? The top 3 sites measured by hours worked are as follows:

  • Dudmaston (gardens and woodland)
  • Wenlock Edge
  • Morville Hall

Matt Hinton topped the hours chart again this year with 310.75hours. He isn’t a man, he’s a machine! A volunteering machine! Well done Matt.

We also have a “top 100”. This lists the total hours volunteered by the top 100 group members since the group began in 1980. Just for fun, have a guess at how many hours the group have worked in total (answer at the end of this post).

Congratulations to our volunteers who earned National Trust Long Service Awards during this past year.

20 year award – Peter Orme
15 year award –Helen Payne, Ann Dalgleish
10 year award – Tom Freeland, Jen Davison, Laura Harrison, Sheila Smallwood, Rachel Freeland, Neil Semple
5 year award – Gill Amias, Ben Nash, Jackie Semple, Avril Simpson

They will receive their awards at a special event later this year.

A big thank you to all who contributed volunteer hours and to those who do committee work and workday leading, ensuring that the group continues to flourish.

 

If you’d like to add a few volunteer hours to next year’s total, why not join us for a workday? Our current list of workdays can be found on our EVENTS page. Pick a day and CONTACT US. Let’s make the coming year a bigger and better success.

 

(answer: 58,638 hours – wow!)

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Volunteer Hours 2013

Posted in National Trust Volunteering, tagged , , on October 8, 2013|

It’s “Look how awesome we are” time again. Our volunteer hours and stats have recently been published. The results are always impressive – lots of hard working volunteer hours for the National Trust.

Figures are from 1st Sept 2012 to 31st Aug 2013:

  • total volunteer hours for the group – 3,465.25
  • 66 people volunteered with the group
  • there were 71  workdays at 16 different National Trust sites

Where did we spend our time? The top 3 sites measured by hours worked are as follows:

  • Dudmaston
  • Benthall Hall
  • Wenlock Edge
Matt Hinton topped the hours chart again this year with 379.25hours (plus his mum sends us cake – yay Matt’s mum!).

We are also very proud of our volunteers who earned National Trust Long Service Awards this past year.

20 year award – Ann Brookman, Andrew Dalgleish, Dave Maeer, Jane Maeer
15 year award – Christine Brown, Ron Murdoch
10 year award – Lucy Cole
5 year award – Peter Elliot, Jon Hazlewood, Matt Hinton, Zac Harvey, John Upton,Gordon Whittaker, Lisa Whittaker

Well done all.

A big thank you to all who contributed volunteer hours and to those who do the admin and workday leading, ensuring that the group is a continued success.

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February 2013

Posted in National Trust Volunteering, tagged , , on March 4, 2013|

Did we eat cake? Yes, we did.

Morville cake

Was there sunshine? Yes, there was.

Moseley Kings Walk

Was there fire? Yes, there was.

Benthall Hall

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January 2013 – Highlights

Posted in National Trust Volunteering, Shropshire Volunteering, tagged , , on February 1, 2013|

Hello all

We have reached the end of our first working month of the year and it has been a busy one, with challenging working conditions.

We started the month on Saturday 5th at Benthall Hall. The task involved cutting down old fruit trees and sycamore and burning the evidence on a bonfire. This is perfect work for the time of year: gets us working hard from the outset with the promise of a bonfire to keep us warm. There was a good turnout and we were rewarded with a hot meal at the end of the day. We had our tea break and meals in style as we were allowed to use the Hall as our base – perhaps the scruffiest group to eat around the table since it was crafted in the 1600s?

benthall

Benthall Hall

The weather turned from mild to cold for our workday on Sunday 13th, where a hardy group headed out to Wenlock Edge where we continued to open up a viewpoint on one of the many walks through the woods. The immense size of our bonfire created spring like conditions where we were working, despite the fact that the temperature didn’t rise much above freezing elsewhere.

…and then it snowed…but we were not put off

After a two year break, we returned to Shugborough on Sunday 26th. Shugborough is home to “The Great Yew”, listed as the largest evergreen crown in Britain and Ireland. We gave the yew a trim, not a chop! With snow on the ground, there was also time for a little fun.

shugborough yew

Trimming The Great Yew

shugborough snow

Shugborough snow

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January 2013

Posted in National Trust Volunteering, Shropshire Volunteering, tagged on January 12, 2013|

Crikey, it’s another year and we are off to a flying start. Two workdays under our belts already and a new programme waiting in the wings to take us through until the end of April.

2012 was an excellent year for the group. Our volunteer hours were up on the previous year and we added a new site, Benthall Hall, to our ever expanding Empire! We took on new challenges and welcomed volunteers, old and new, to a varied programme of workdays. We aim to continue the good work throughout 2013 and our current programme of workdays shows how busy we will be in the first part of the year. Legend has it that the group used to work on Sundays…as you can see, to fit in all the workdays we now do a lot of work on Saturdays, and even the occasional Friday. So there is no excuse for not coming out and doing some work in the great outdoors.

Would you like further details about the group or details about any of the workdays? Perhaps you’d like to tell us how good our website is (or not!). You can contact us via this website on our contact page.

We’ll leave you with a nice relaxing photo taken at our January 5th workday at Benthall Hall. We like to take our tea-breaks in style.

Benthall Hall

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August to October 2012

Posted in National Trust Volunteering, Shropshire Volunteering, tagged , , on October 21, 2012|

hello….are you there? We’ve been Missing In Action for a couple of months. Sorry. Lazy. Been busy cutting things, burning things and eating cake (what else would would we be doing?!).

What’s been going on with SSNTV?

We’ve had 16 workdays since the last web update. We headed north to Biddulph Grange and south to The Weir, visited old favourites (Morville and Dudmaston) and found our way to a new property (Benthall Hall).

Benthall is a real joy and the work is ideal for our group. Our first project is helping clear an overgrown path which stretches from the Benthall estate, downhill towards Ironbridge and the River Severn. In the near future, it is hoped that the restored path will be designated as a bridleway.

As we now approach the end of October, SSNTV look forward to a busy autumn and winter programme. You can find details of all our workdays on the EVENTS page.

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