Sea Swept Farm asked us to carry out habitat and biodiversity enhancement works. This would improve the existing riparian habitat and natural ecological interactions as well as contributing to flood mitigation, by detaining water on site and slowing the flow.
Seaswept Farm,
Mousehole
The solution
Using excavators, we started by carefully digging five scrapes of varying sizes, depths, and shapes into the landscape where a natural spring would feed and flood the area. The scrapes were shallow and wide, designed to hold large bodies of water from the spring, collect rainwater, and spill over into the next scrape, continuing down the field. The bank edges were landscaped carefully and re-seeded with pasture mix.
At the bottom of the field, we dug a much deeper pond, complete with shelving, slopes, and ramps to allow ease of access for wildlife and for future planting of native aquatic plants.
In a different area of the farm, we installed a series of leaky dams, made from locally quarried stone, and felled timber from the site. This flood mitigation system consisted of the installation of a stone deflector disrupting the natural flow of the stream, followed by a bay dug out of the bank and into the adjacent field, with a leaky dam further down the stream. We installed two of these systems in one section of the stream to disrupt and slow the water flow down, with the intention of flooding the bays in the fields where they would hold water.
Finally, we worked on further stone wall repairs and leaky dams, again using stone and granite that was locally quarried. This involved using the excavators and mechanical barrows to transport stone to the riverbank and manoeuvre them into position.
The result
Overall, the work completed will help considerably with mitigating the flood impacts on the local village of Mousehole, that sits below the farm. Our works were designed to disrupt and slow water flow through the farm through natural flood management and nature-based solutions.
Our solution will help manage rainfall that flows into Mousehole from the village, and we also worked to maximise opportunities for nature and habitat creation across the farm, encouraging a variety of native aquatic flora and fauna as well as encouraging other non-aquatic species.
It was a pleasure to work at Seaswept Farm, and we envisage our work contributing significantly to the existing rewilding works that are currently ongoing by the landowner. We will be back after the winter months to see how our natural flood management systems have worked and hopefully see an increase in biodiversity!