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"Thank you for your vision and hard work and for leaving this wonderful gem for past, present and future," said Eileen Dixon, welcoming the way in which the inspired vision of Haile Breathing Place has been turned into the beautiful reality of winding paths, foot bridges over a shallow beck and seats carved out of tree stumps. In the words of Lynn Lobb, the team had made "a fantastic job of turning an overgrown and derelict piece of land into a beautiful garden." 
The team, as Penny Thompson explains, is a small bunch of five mums with twelve children between them who set up Haile Village Hall Play Area Committee with the aim of making life more fun for children within the parish. In November 2006 they heard about the BBC Breathing Places Project which was set up to help communities identify a patch of wasteland local to them and transform it into an accessible wildlife garden. They applied for the big lottery fund grant and in May 07 were thrilled to be awarded a maximum grant of £10,000 in a wave of funding that included only three groups in Copeland, their play area, Cumbria Wildlife Trust, Hensingham and Eskdale Mill. Additional funding of £1759 from Local Network Fund, £1000 from Sellafield Site Fund and £200 from Fluor Cumbria Fund allowed them to set up their irresistible Summerhouse within the new garden, where children can take time out for a drink or healthy snack and listen to stories.
The Breathing Places grant was awarded on the understanding that volunteers would be involved as much as possible so that they could learn as much as possible through the process. Local firm Calder Landscapes undertook the majority of the landscaping work and designed the overall planting scheme. They sought advice on wildlife habitats from Sue Thurley at Muncaster (on owls), Les Robertson in Wilton (from Red Alert - red squirrel protection), Gail Butterill from the Environment Agency (on the beck running through the site) as well as gardening advice far and wide.
They had a community planting day in May, a really warm community event when people met and chatted for the first time with a common purpose. Many plants and trees were donated in particular by Eileen and Terry Dixon, who knew how dear the project would have been to their daughter Lorraine, who tragically died on holiday two years ago, and by Elizabeth Phipps of Haile Hall, continuing in her family's tradition of sharing gardening know-how and encouraging a love of our local environment. Haile and Wilton Parish Council and Haile Village Hall have each donated sturdy benches for the garden. Theatre by the Lake's StoryTree treated the children to a drama workshop during the afternoon of their Open Day on 14th June, based on a story about an extremely tidy family and a very untidy one and how they eventually came to understand one another better.

Ella enjoys the wonderland of the Haile Breathing Space

Children ready for a story in the summerhouse