Pond is back to former glory
VOLUNTEERS have completed the restoration of a much-loved Felixstowe pond - bringing it back to its former glory.Generations of children have enjoyed feeding the ducks and moorhens at Gulpher Pond, but a build-up of silt was threatening to drive away its wildlife.
VOLUNTEERS have completed the restoration of a much-loved Felixstowe pond - bringing it back to its former glory.
Generations of children have enjoyed feeding the ducks and moorhens at Gulpher Pond, but a build-up of silt was threatening to drive away its wildlife.
This summer the Felixstowe Society launched a project to clean-up the pond and was helped by Felixstowe engineering firm TWS Ltd and farmer John Adams, who owns the land on which the pond sits.
Huge amounts of silt were removed in order to deepen it and improve it.
At the weekend, a team of volunteers revisited the pond in Gulpher Road to finish the work - tidying up the area around it so the vegetation would be ready to grow and flourish again next spring
Alan Muchal, one of the Felixstowe Society's small team of volunteer conservation workers, said the pond had previously had major work in 1988 and the society regularly monitored its condition.
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He said: “Measurements of water depth taken by the society gave cause for concern. Professional advice was that we should act to dredge it again before silt build up became a major problem once more.”
In the 1800s the pond was used for watering horses. In the early 1900s Tommy Robinson had the job of wading in on a regular basis to dig out the silt. Since its restoration in 1988 it has become home to a considerable number of ducks fed regularly by children.
