Your Community Needs You: Restore a garden for all

The resurrection of Helmsley Walled Garden in North Yorkshire is a true community labour of love. Just by the castle, the five-acre plot was part of Grade I-listed landscape Duncombe Park estate: today it's a thriving local amenity and centre of horticultural therapy.

From total dereliction - and no original photos or plans - locals have rebuilt the garden, re-created an orchid house and vinery, established allotments, developed a 200-variety clematis collection and planted over 50 old Yorkshire apple cultivars. Therapists, educators, disabled people, ex-offenders and garden-lovers all work, learn and thrive there. Tourists and garden clubs visit; locals drop by for free.

But, as with many heritage projects, it takes one person to make it happen. This one is testament to the doggedness of Alison Ticehurst, a local nurse who died in 1999 but who made the restoration her life's work. She had the vision, ploughed her own money in, found an inspirational head gardener, set up the charitable trust and recruited the initial dozen volunteers. They included local teenager Lindsay Tait, who, 14 years on, is the garden's assistant manager. www.helmsleywalledgarden.org.uk

Starting out

The first port of call should be the Heritage Lottery Fund, which provides grants for good causes. Local community ownership is being touted as the way forward for more heritage schemes.

Heritage is not just about saving old buildings; it could be artefacts, documents, hedgerows, water courses, bridges, breeds, habitats, traditions, skills or landscapes - anything that is precious and of historic significance to you and your community.

The Prince's Countryside Fund is Country Living magazine's charity of the year and will be supporting its work at the CL Fairs and in the magazine. It's funded by businesses that have a connection to the countryside, through the products they make or sell. You can donate through your post office. Visit www.princescountrysidefund.org.uk.