12 GoodGymers help clear leaves and weeds from the historical moat at Bishop's Park

On a rather chilly and grey Saturday morning, 11 wonderful GoodGymers met in Bishop's Park to help weed Fulham Palace's historical moat. A few had joined following another big and busy, Fulham Palace parkrun which takes place every Saturday in Bishop's Park - it's FREE and all you need is a printed barcode if you'd like your time recorded, or you can volunteer and give everyone a cheer - as Cookie did fantastically on the final straight! I'd fully recommend getting involved, it's a brilliant way to start your weekend and you often see fellow GoodGymers in their red or black tees.

Three men in a moat?

To begin with, Rob, Chris and Matt joined me outside the Bishop's Garden Tea House and I thought it may have been a case of three men in a moat - pun sorted! 😄

However, it was as lovely to be joined by, Cookie, Morag (once she'd found us!) and 4 new GoodGymers. A brilliant mix of new and familar faces. A big welcome along to Eden, Shauna, Kathryn and Daniella for their first GoodGym session - hope you all enjoyed it!

Running...our moat of transportation

Following a short spiel on all things GoodGym and a headcount, we set off on a short warm-up (quite literally to warm-up!) loop of Bishop's Park. Along the way we paused for some jumping jacks and squats, for extra warmth! It wasn't long before we arrived at the moat bridge ready to meet Lucy, one of the volunteer coordinators for Fulham Palace Trust.

Lucy welcomed the group and gave a brief history of the moat. Fulham Palace's moat was nearly 1.4 km (0.87 mi) in length and was the largest domestic moated site in medieval England. The moat was filled in with builders' debris in the 1920s, and exists, underground, as an unbroken circuit. In 2010, an excavation began to uncover the historical moat, which you can now see either side of the moat bridge.

Our job today was to help the volunteers with the weeding, raking, and clearing of the leaves from the moat. We helped get all the tools and large bags down into the moat and gloved up, ready to get stuck in. Lucy gave a quick demostration of what we needed to be done and pointed out the 'pest' weed, bindweed, which needed to be kept separate from the bags of leaves and weeds that were going to be composted.

Lots of moativity

Most armed themselves with a rake and began raking the many, many leaves from the steep banks of the moat. Rob, Cookie, Chris and Danielle tackled one side of the moat, while Eden, Shauna, Kathryn, Matt and Morag tackled the other side. Amongst the leaf raking and gathering of leaf piles into the bags, there was lots of friendly chat, and comments of how much of treat it was to be doing a task in daylight and without any rain or wind!

It wasn't long before Chi and Helen arrived from their Richmond parkruns to add some extra pairs of helping hands, with Chi opting for the direct quick run down the steep bank instead of the steps the other side 🙈.

You've goat to be kidding!

Some tough and tricky to reach weeds brought the best 'mountain goat' impressions from our GoodGymers, while also providing an excellent lower body workout in maintaining your balance, and the challenge of making it back down again without slipping! With rakes ingeniously used as anchors, everyone made it look easy!

Cookie did some chopping of weeds at the very top of the bank, while both Kathryn and Matt glided smoothly up and down. A rogue weed was spotted by Helen who took on both the steep bank and tough weed with triumphant success. There's even photo evidence of Chi getting involved with some raking on the steep bank, a rare sight 😉.

Rake me up before you go-go!

In just 40 minutes, all the GoodGymers and other Fulham Palace volunteers had filled all the large bags to the brim with leaves and weeds for composting. You could now see the lovely green grass of the moat, now devoid of weeds, with the remaining leaves left in piles ready to be collected once the large bags had been emptied onto the compost.

Check out the difference...

Chi kindly took a couple of 'artistic' group shots next the moat bridge and from above. Everyone called it a day as all the bags had been filled. We helped gather in the tools before we headed over to the paved area by the Skate Bowl for some fun fitness games.

Off in squat pursuit!

To get the brain and body warmed-up before the fitness games we did some high knees, jumping jacks, spotty dogs and all successfully mastered the 'different moves for each number' challenge. We even had a couple of young kids keen to get involved!

We started off with the childhood classic duck, duck, goose in the form of squat, squat, goose! This proved to be slightly trickier than anticipated with a small and tight circle. However, lots of fun and laughs were had, and everyone managed to stay on their feet in some closely run battles!

We then split into two teams for a two-minute game of 'squatshot'. Team One (Team Down) v Team Two (Team Up), and the gusts of winds as the 'unofficial competitor', Team Sideways! Some interesting tactics and battles occurred with shot glasses quickly being up then down or vice versa (and the odd multiple shot turn!). It was a highly competitive game with Team Up emerging victorious, by quite some margin - definitely helped by having one extra person on their team! Awesome 'squatshot' work all!

We rocked the moat!

Thank you all very much for coming along and for all your efforts in the moat, what a start to the weekend!

It was absolutely fabulous to welcome some new faces to GoodGym, and we really hope you'll be able to make it back again soon.

Have a great rest of your weekend! 😊

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More about GoodGym

At GoodGym, 'we get fit and do good' in our communities. We do this in four main ways:

1. Group runs - these happen every Tuesday evening in Hammersmith & Fulham. We meet at the BetterGym in Hammersmith 6:45pm for a 7pm start. You can find all the details of the next run here. Hope to see you then!

2. Missions - one-off runs to an elderly and isolated person's house to help out with a job they can't manage themselves, for example, moving furniture, gardening, changing lightbulbs. If you're keen to get involved, you'll need to get mission verified, including a DBS check. More information here.

3. Coach runs - you get paired with an older person who may not see anybody else from day to day. You visit them weekly for a chat - not only is it a wonderful thing to do for somebody who is lonely, but you get an incentive to head out there for your run and you could form a pretty great friendship in the process.

4. Finally we have Community Missions - similar to a group run but everyone meets up at the task to support a local community organisation. For these you don't need to be DBS checked, everybody is welcome, and you don't even have to run there (although it adds to the fun if you do!). You can see all the community missions happening here.

If you have any questions, please drop me an email: bethn@goodgym.org.