Providing sanctuary for wildlife
Cygnets, goslings, ducklings and chicks await visitors to a garden centre near Southwell.
The swan sanctuary at Reg Taylor’s Garden Centre has a wealth of wildfowl, many of which are donated or rescued.
It was Mr Mark Taylor (42) who works at the centre, on Corkhill Lane, Normanton, who started the sanctuary at the age of 16 when he dug the first pond as a refuge for sick and injured swans.
In contrast, the sanctuary now has six lakes in nine acres of sculpted woodland at the back of the garden centre, which was founded by Mr Taylor’s grandfather, Mr Reg Taylor, in 1964.
Mr Reg Taylor died in 1988 and the centred is managed by his son and Mark’s father, Mr Richard Taylor.
Mark’s mother, Mrs Jean Ann Taylor (60) runs the sanctuary. She said it had given a purpose to what was formerly a marshy piece of land.
“My son dug the first pond himself using a JCB he had hired and we started off with eight swans from a swan rescue service, which rehomed birds that had been caught in power cables or in fishing lines,” she said.
“Now we’ve created a lovely arboretum and sanctuary for all kinds of birds.
“It was just an open field with rushes and not much else and now it is somewhere nice and calm that people can come and relax and look at the wildlife.
“We opened the sanctuary because as a family looking after wildlife and, particularly swans and other birds, was something we felt passionately about and we just did it for the love of it.”
Mrs Taylor did not know how many birds were at the sanctuary but said it was home to, among others, Canada geese, ducks, moorhens, coots, black swans and chickens.
Mrs Taylor said: “Chickens were a recent addition because people kindly donate them to us because they buy them and have them in their gardens and then they get fed up and we take them.
“In one of our ponds we’ve also got a turtle we call Tommy Taylor who was donated to us and he lives quite happily alongside the birds.”
Mrs Taylor also previously bred peacocks.
She said: “We were quite successful when we did breed peacocks and we used to send them to zoos but we stopped that and now we have only one female here.
“We bought the black swans because we thought they would be interesting for the public to look at.”
The newest birds are a brood of 18 chickens from a battery farm.
Mrs Taylor said the birds were in a bad condition before they came to the sanctuary.
She said: “When we got them they had no feathers and they looked like they had been plucked ready for cooking.
“We’ve had them about a year and their feathers have grown back and they are looking much healthier and happier.”
Mrs Taylor said that the sanctuary had not changed much in the last ten years but still required a lot of work to keep it running.
She said: “We have to keep tidying it up every year, repairing fencing and doing general maintenance.
“One of the biggest problems we have here is erosion where the water in the lakes laps at the banks so we are constantly working to prevent that.”
Mrs Taylor said her grandchildren were taking an interest in the sanctuary.
She said: “We’ve got no real plans to do anything more with the sanctuary other than keep it running as it is.
“Luckily I’ve got eight grandchildren who all feed the birds for me and they are showing an interest now, so hopefully we will be able to keep this in the family for the next generation.”
Entry is £1.50 for adults, £1 for pensioners, and free for under-16s.
The sanctuary is open Monday to Saturday from 10am to 5.30pm, and Sunday 10.30am to 4.30pm.
