"Love Your Garden" - Gamekeeper Style

Six gamekeepers from Rosedale and Westerdale Estate have transformed a local retired gamekeepers garden. Wilf Wilson an 88 year old former gamekeeper from Westerdale has this month seen his garden get a complete makeover and now has a garden to be proud of, not just a lawned area and flowers, but it also has it's very own vegetable patch.





Wilf has lived in Box House in the village of Westerdale for the past 74 years and he retired in 2005 after 50 years as a Gamekeeper. He took over from his late father who became the gamekeeper there when he moved in after the war.

Over the last few years Wilf's health has deteriorated and he has been unable to keep up the maintenance on his garden. He has even been struggling to get in and out of the house, due to the overgrown grass and weeds.



Jimmy Brough, head keeper on the Rosedale and Westerdale estate, and his five strong team of keepers felt very strongly that they wanted to help Wilf and restore his garden back to some of its former glory. They approached Wilf with their idea and it wasn't long until work commenced with the aim being to give Wilf a better view from his window and also somewhere he could easily get out into so he could enjoy some much needed fresh air.





Tina Brough of the North Yorkshire Moors Moorland Organisation said: "It was no small job, it was definitely not a case of just cutting the lawn and doing a bit of weeding. The vast mass of weeds, patches of nettles some of which measured 12ft high, trees and hedges were all either removed or pruned back. The previous flagstone path was replaced with a much easier accessible hardcore path and in addition 3 new garden gates were handmade by a keeper and hung in place.

"The garden area is now ready for rotavating and reseeding and will be completed in the next couple of weeks, once the lawn is established the gamekeepers have already agreed to maintain the very large but now much more simplistic garden area as and when required."

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