Help is at hand for hedgerows on the Nickey Line
The Nickey Line is a popular 7 mile long disused railway line running between St Albans and Dacorum and offers excellent traffic free access between Harpenden and Hemel Hempstead.
The Line is highly valued by users and has a large Friends group with over 140 members. The Line also has good wildlife potential with pockets of woodland, old hedgerows and grass verges found along its length. To promote public access and improve the conservation potential of the Line the Friends regularly carry out volunteer events including guided walks and conservation tasks. These events always prove very popular with numbers between 20 and 40 not unusual!
Recently volunteers from the Friends of the Nickey Line and the CMS West and Southern Area have carried out a series of coppicing events. This coppicing has not only opened up areas of the Line and reinstated ancient hazel coppice stools but has also provided the stakes and binders needed to reinstate a 50m section of hedge recently laid by volunteers on the Redbourn section of the Line. This section of newly laid hedge (pictured) will form part of an ongoing project to lay further lengths of hedge along the Nickey Line, providing good habitat for nesting birds and small mammals and contributing towards keeping the ancient countryside management techniques of coppicing and hedgelaying alive.
For more information, to participate in events or to join the Friends of the Nickey Line contact friends@nickeyline.org or call the CMS West and Southern Area on 01727 848168
