You may remember that in the summer I pointed out what a dire state the brook was in?
If not, here is the link to that article.
Tideswell Brook in need of Attention
Well, last week I went back up there with a mind to clearing the stream of the weeds. I had spoken to the farmer who owned the land, and he had given me the green light to go onto the land. I was somewhat surprised to see that when I got up to “The Car Wash”, the stream had been cleared, or looked as though it had. That saved me a lot of work.
I jumped into the enclosure and cleared out a lot of the silt and weed that was remaining. It was retarding the flow of water into the dam. It only took me a few moments to clear the offending weed to the side. I was careful to place the weed just at the side of the stream so any wildlife that might have been hiding in there could easily make it back to the water.
The reservoir soon filled up nicely and I even saw a small Brown Trout, YEEEHA!.
There’s no point in clearing the top of the stream if the bottom is blocked up too.
I then drove down to the Severn Trent sewage plant in the south of the village. Just before the sewage treatment plant, there is a storm drain which drains the brook through a pipe into a manmade channel before it flows into Tideswell Dale.
whenever I can, I come up at the start and end of Autumn and clear away the leaves and fallen branches which block the drain. This allows the brook to drain properly without backing up and flooding the village.
Tideswell gets flooded occasionally when the brook is high, but this can be combatted with a little simple maintenance.
