Yorkshire Wildlife Trust

Hampole Quarry Restoration

It’s not often that we get the chance to create new habitat, but such an opportunity arose this summer as part of a partnership project that the Trust worked on with Environment Agency. 
 
“Magnesian limestone grassland” is a very restricted habitat in the UK, being limited to a band of magnesium-rich limestone that stretches from Durham south to Nottingham. This wild flower-rich grassland is one of our most biodiverse habitats, but much has been lost to agriculture over the years, as it produces fertile arable land. The Trust is fortunate to manage significant areas of the remaining grassland habitat in several of its nature reserves, for example at Brockadale, Sherburn Willows and Sprotbrough Flash.

Hampole Quarry is a disused former quarry on the Magnesian limestone adjacent to the A1 near Doncaster. Uncontrolled dumping between the 1970s and 1990s saw this quarry filled with tyres, creating a major environmental hazard. In 2006 the Environment Agency began the restoration of the site, with the removal of an incredible 1 million tyres (8000 tonnes), which were taken away for recycling. The remaining dumped material in the quarry was levelled, covered in a geogrid membrane and capped with a layer of local limestone. At this point in the project, the Environment Agency called upon the Trust to help restore vegetation in the quarry, with the aim of creating a new area of limestone grassland.

To achieve this goal, a team of twenty volunteers was mobilised this August, including EA staff, Doncaster Council rangers and the Don Gorge Conservation Volunteers. Led by the Trust’s Southern Reserves staff, this industrious team mowed the limestone grassland at Sprotbrough Flash nature reserve and raked up the hay, which was then transported five miles north to Hampole and spread by another team of volunteers on to the crushed limestone covering of the restored quarry. The cut hay was full of wild flower seed, and it was important to complete the operation as quickly as possible to prevent the seeds either being dropped on the ground or rotting. Thankfully the weather was kind to us and the volunteers worked very hard, enabling us to complete the job in one day – thanks to all involved!