A lasting legacy for wildlife

Asked to comment on how legacies have helped the Trust, Edmund Hayward, our Hon Sec who has long overseen the management of legacies for the Trust, responded:

Over the 35 years or so since the Trust’s foundation, RWT has been the grateful recipient of over fifty legacies. Each one has made a great contribution to the growth and sustainability of the Trust, by funding specific acquisitions and projects and, just as importantly, providing the core finance needed to run the Trust. Most legacies have been monetary, either a fixed sum or share in deceased’s estate but a few have been of specific assets.

No doubt all the kind people who have left legacies to RWT had their own personal and particular reasons for doing so: one lady, who at the time was re-writing her Will, said a couple of years back to Edmund that she proposed to leave a share in the residue of her estate to RWT because “it’ll give me two bites at the cherry. The Trust will publicly thank me, acknowledging the legacy in your report etc. Then, as the years go by, people will go to the Trust’s reserves and thank those who have made it possible for the Trust to purchase and maintain such terrific places. They are unlikely to know what contribution, if any, my particular legacy may have made to that nature reserve but I’ll smile down from that celestial place and say to myself ‘that’s my legacy’ - a continuing one“.

Fronwen Wood by Silvia Cojocaru — Silvia Cojocaru

One legacy which exemplified the donor’s particular reason was Joan Payne’s legacy gift of Fronwen Wood: Joan and her husband Clive bought the beautiful old wood while Joan was the Trust’s chair. They, their family and friends spent many happy days there, enhancing the conservation value of the wood by careful, limited management, benefiting the fine collection of well-established oak and ash. Joan’s wish was that Fronwen would continue to be managed with the same object: she and Clive felt that this could best be achieved by leaving the wood to the Trust, together with a cash fund to support its management. Knowing that her condition was incurable and Clive having decided that he would leave the area, the gift was actually just made in Joan’s lifetime, so she, totally modest as she was, witnessed the transfer to the Trust. Fronwen will always serve as a reminder of Joan’s dedication to the Trust.

Inevitably, if asked to give examples of legacies to the Trust, one’s inclination is to list out the largest legacies as these understandably are the most recognisable: that may be true but somewhat invidious. Thus, I will next highlight an unusual legacy received a couple of years ago: a member owned some paintings by a popular local wildlife artist. Under her Will, she instructed her executors to sell them and give the proceeds to the Trust. They were duly sent to auction and the Trust received the proceeds.

Another longstanding member, who had been a member of the Trust from the time when there was one combined Trust for Herefordshire and Radnorshire, left her house in Evenjobb to the Trust. She had no children and took a very active interest in everything the Trust did, particularly encouraging children to appreciate the wildlife around them. Her death occurred when the property market was at a low ebb but once it was sold, the cash legacy received by the Trust was substantial and conveniently arrived at a time when the Trust’s finances were very stretched.

Silvia Cojocaru

Many members will know that the full name of our reserve at Tylcau Hill is the Flossie Brand Tylcau Hill Reserve. Flossie, strictly Margaret Brand, was a close neighbour to the Trust’s offices at Warwick House: although never a member, she was familiar to many of the Trust’s staff as a quiet neighbour but no one ever imagined that she would leave a 25% interest in her estate to the Trust, and moreover that her estate would be so substantial, probably much larger and more complicated than she knew herself, due to her being the final beneficiary of a family trust set up in Victorian times. Over fifteen years after her death, one aspect of this large legacy is still being administered but in the intervening years, the legacy has formed the basis of the Trust’s investment portfolio as well as funding the purchase of Tylcau Hill.

Everyone’s family circumstances and commitments are different and none of us knows what our estate will consist of when our time comes, as so well illustrated by Margaret Bland. Solicitors encourage people to review their Wills every five years or so, to take account of changing family and household circumstances and to update who will benefit under their Will, as well as to accommodate any Inheritance Tax changes. The service offered through the Trust gives an opportunity for all these aspects to be covered and for consideration to be given to leaving something to the Trust, a legacy to a worthy cause, for the present and the future.

- Edmund Hayward, Hon. Secretary