Contractors from Devon have all worked together as a team to renovate an overgrown and disused pond at Nethercott House.
The pond which would have been a particularly lovely feature of the Grade II listed house’s grounds hasn’t had water running through it for nearly 20 years as it had long since silted up leaving little more than a large dried out pit at the bottom of the field.
Catherine has waited eight years for the project to finally come to fruition and thanks to the joint efforts of Adrian Izod and James Heike of Interserve Construction in Exeter, Pete Baker from Hi-Line Tree Surgeons also from Exeter and Roger Clarke of SEL Clarke Plant Hire in Bideford the pond has been transformed to its former glory! Interserve undertook the project as part of its ‘Give A Day’ programme and overseen by Interserve’s Stuart Quiney, the team made great progress. Once the undergrowth and non-native trees had been cleared away there was a clearer picture of what once lay beneath and with careful, sensitive excavation and reshaping they even found a blocked up natural spring that had once fed the pond and reinstated that too so that the newly dug pond would benefit from its natural feed once more.
Over 1,000 children aged between 8 and 11 will benefit from this nature project each year and once the silt has settled, the pond will once again be teeming with life and will provide a natural habitat for the farm’s wildlife. We hope to attract newts, frogs, dragonflies and many other species so that when we have children visiting the farm each week they can go pond dipping to look at the creatures that have set up new homes there.
Interserve intend to return in the early summer to create a path around the pond and to install benches and a wooden jetty. We also hope to clear a large area of grass for Catherine and her team to plant a beautiful wildflower meadow through which pathways will be mown joining the house to the pond once again.
