Our wonderful volunteers have almost finished looking at the 1st edition Ordnance Survey maps to see if they can find new Ice Age ponds. Early work to evaluate this is revealing many ponds and we will let you know more once of it is completed. We are also trialling the next stage of this work, which is walking routes to check whether ponds are still present. If you are interested in walking around parts of Western Herefordshire to check for ponds, please do get in touch (e.andrews@worc.ac.uk) and I will send you details, once they are finalised.
We are all still working from home and busy getting various parts of the project sorted. We have all mastered zoom, and have been holding many virtual meetings to help get the project started. One of our first tasks will be to start preparing material for the trails and apps to help people discover this wonderful landscape. Part of this will involve drone footage, so we hope to bring you some of this soon.
This project highlights a post-glacial landscape but while we can’t get out and share it with you, I wanted to tell you about a project run by the University of Worcester to bring glacial and post glacial landscapes into your home. While they don’t include Herefordshire, you can experience lots of areas including the Lake District, sites in the USA and European Alps. Just visit: https://vrglaciers.wp.worc.ac.uk/wordpress/. There is no interpretation, but lots of fabulous images and the option to look in all directions as you virtually wander around these spectacular landscapes. They work on most computers and mobile devices and just need an internet connection. Well worth a virtual field trip as we stay at home and stay safe.
Finally, just a reminder that we have a twitter account (@BuildingStones) and instagram (earth_heritage_trust) so please do follow us to keep up to date with what we are doing.
We are trying to add lots of new bits as we carry on working at home.
Beth Andrews, Project Officer – Conserving Herefordshire’s Ice Age Ponds.