Volunteers with the new watergate installed to protect new woodland from grazing animals at High Borrowdale

Volunteers have waded in to help protect an area of Cumbria destined to become part of an enlarged national park.

Plans are in hand to extend the Lake District national park eastwards to encompass Borrowdale, north-east of Kendal. Members of the Friends of the Lake District recently spent a day working on measures to keep sheep and deer out of newly planted woodland.

The project included the repairing of a watergate and rebuilding 6m (20ft) of drystone walling to keep animals out of the sensitive area at High Borrowdale, which the Friends bought in 2002 to protect the land from future inappropriate development and to enhance its landscape.

The young trees, including oak, ash, elder, rowan, holly and hawthorn, need protecting until they are more established. 14 volunteers took part in the activities, which also included clearing gutters on a cow shed, removing ragwort and replacing tree stakes blown over by the wind.

The area at High Borrowdale is open access land and the public is welcome on the site, where talks and school visits are held regularly.

Jan Darrall, policy officer with Friends of the Lake District said: “The volunteers have done a great job of repairing the watergate and dry stone walls to protect our woodland from animals grazing.  We rely on our volunteers to help keep Borrowdale beautiful so that everybody can enjoy it.”

The Friends have repaired 5km (3 miles) of dry stone walls, since acquiring the land; repaired three buildings, planted 10,000 new trees in two new sections of woodland, and created an upland hay meadow.

Two further conservation days are planned, one for Wednesday and one the following week in the Kirkby Stephen and Oxenholme areas respectively.

Planners recently threw out an application to build a holiday village at Low Borrowdale.

Details of the Friends’ activities are on its website.