The Witch’s Pool: Wildlife Trust help maintain Pwll y Wrach’s natural beauty

Visitors to an enchanting waterfall and woodland with links to local witchcraft myth and folklore will benefit from improved trails from this month.

In October, WTSWW Brecknock staff and a volunteer team tackled storm-damaged trails and fallen ash trees at Pwll y Wrach Nature Reserve, Talgarth, Powys.

Efforts included clearing paths for visitors, repairing eroded sections, and ensuring safe winter access.

Supported by Natures Networks Heritage Lottery funding, these improvements will keep Pwll y Wrach accessible and scenic for all.

Ash dieback

In early October the work party of volunteers and staff headed out for Pwll y Wrach for some routine maintenance jobs.  At the small car park they met some nurses on their day off.

Writing on the Wildlife Trusts website, they shared: “They kindly shuffled their car around so we could fit our cars in and headed off as we unloaded our tools.

“We soon caught them up as they couldn’t get through a mass of ash tree branches that had fallen on the narrow path to the waterfall.

“There had been some gusty heavy rain the weekend before and the trees weakened by ash dieback had snapped.  We cleared the way so that they could carry on with their walk and then fetched the chainsaw to finish off.”

Boggy

The Trust continued: “With our original plans slightly derailed, the group then spent the afternoon repairing a boggy patch in the path with some stones and gravel, and widening a narrow bit where the edge had eroded.

“Once or twice a year we have to clear the gullies around the viewing area of leaf mush, and scrape off the decking.

“By the end of the day everyone was fairly muddy and on the way back we passed a couple in white trainers who were lucky they hadn’t come earlier in the day.”

Further closures

Over winter there may be times when the reserve needs to be closed. This is because we are getting a contractor to do work on some of the ash trees which are diseased.

There will be signage and/or hazard tape, and visitors have been asked to look out for them.  The permissive path that follows the stream down hill from the end of the easy access track has been closed for a while and will remain closed due to ash dieback.

The loop around the lowest section of the wood remains open.  The Easy access trail and path up to the waterfall and uphill to the road remains open.

However, even when this work is done there will still be a lot of ash trees in the wood that can’t be removed. It is not advisable to walk in woodland where there are high numbers of ash trees during high winds at any time of year.

Work on Pwll y Wrach paths and tree safety has been funded through the Accessible Nature project from Natures Networks Heritage Lottery Fund.