Jim's Unique Gem

"The Warden consists of an ancient castle site on the fringes of town, which was gifted to our townspeople by the 5th Earl of Oxford about 200 years ago, after the site had been laid out as an outstanding parkland of flowerbeds, pathways, bowling green and seats; many individual trees, shrubs and colourful bushes. What a wonderful gift to this then extremely poor town.

Obviously the people made good use of the site and at certain times of the year the Warden Wakes were held, along with many other activities. This carried on until the 2nd World War, afterwards lots of changes took place.

The local council did attempt to look after the place until about 20 years ago when the County Council took over and as usually happens they gradually fell down on the job, which in turn led to total neglect and in due course led to many complaints from locals.

Enter the 'ancient woodsman' in the shape of myself. I suggested that the townspeople should actually do what was required ourselves, and at the same time enabling me to put something back into the town that has been my home base for so long. In response to my demonstration of leading from the front I ended up with a handful of willing volunteers and after well in excess of 4,000 hours of work we have now bought it under control and look forward to the spring when things will begin to show some results...

I am now exploring the possibility of forming our own local group to set up a charitable trust which I have called 'The Wardens Guardian Foundation'. (Banking facilities at our local Lloyds Bank, Hereford Street, Presteigne.) Since we are being forced to seek funding on our own basis that where any future donations need to be forwarded.

The purpose of the funding will be used specifically to hire machinery and professionals to carry out the duties and renovations to the site and also provide a management policy, with a view to employing a full time ranger to carry out the general maintenance of the complete site, and be provided with all necessary tools and machinery. Also to arrange adequate accommodation for a skilled man and his family.

Furthermore we intend to purchase some waste land next to the site boundary for a car park and picnic area. We also intend to landscape the quarry area to provide a root and fern garden as an extra attraction to this very valuable site.

Of course there are many other smaller matters to be taken into account, as you will understand this is a substantial undertaking overall, and will entail a large fundraising operation right across the board. We are hoping everyone will want to demonstrate their interest in this project in the appropriate fashion."

"We are very fortunate to have such a priceless in the midst of our border town, therefore we should be exploiting the numerous benefits such an attraction that the warden so obviously affords rather than leaving it to become overgrown and inaccessible." Written by Jim Bell from Presteigne.