Harlow Museum have maps which show that the grassy area alongside Stewards School has been an orchard and meadow since the 1800’s. Over the last 3 years Stewards students have helped Harlow Conservation Volunteers (HCV) work in the meadow, cutting the grass, making habitat boxes and studying the wild life that live there. This week we helped HCV finish the creation of a small pond to encourage new aquatic wild life to the area.

 Last year the HCV identified a particularly boggy part of the meadow, dug the hole then left it to see if it would hold water without a liner; it didn’t so this year we levelled it, covered the walls with old carpet before lining it with the PVC pond liner. Then the fun part started, filling it with water. Water from the hose just trickled in so we decided to do a bucket run; filling buckets and running the 150 meters from the tap to the pond; what fun we had.

 Thomas Goodenough (Y 8) ‘really enjoyed making the pond. My favourite part was getting in and emptying the small amount of water which had collected in the hole before we could line it. We got very wet and muddy.’

 Legend for picture: Lauren To (Y8), Andrew Tomlins (HCV), Harrison Hickey (Y9), Matt Fleming (Y7) and Thomas Goodenough (Y8) emptying the pond before lining it.