Our community is at the heart of our vision for West Horsley Place and we are committed to creating opportunities for people to flourish and grow.
There are many different volunteering opportunities at West Horsley Place. Whether you can give a few hours or want join us for regular volunteering, we offer flexible, inclusive volunteering opportunities including:
Confident and passionate volunteers lead group tours of manor house and gardens for up to 30 people. You are an ambassador for our charity and a storyteller. We hold Nooks and Crannies tours on Wednesdays and Film tours on Fridays.
This role is best suited to confident public speakers and those who enjoy interacting with people. You will have help from a volunteer backstop to shepherd your group.
Indoor conservation volunteers help to ensure that West Horsley Place and its contents are maintained and cared for to an exemplary standard. This role involves hands on cleaning and assessment of historic objects and interiors for preventative conservation.
Volunteers in this role will need to be careful and methodical with a good eye for detail. Volunteers must be physically able to crouch, crawl and carry for long periods .
Welcoming children and families to West Horsley Place and helping create a magical experience for their visit. Volunteer activities in this role include Craft activity support, Story reading, Minibeast hunting. Volunteers should have a welcoming attitude and friendly smile, a sense of fun and willingness to play and good communication skills.
These activities often take place during school holidays or weekends.
Open Days take place on weekends once or twice per month. Volunteer shifts are from 9.30 am- 1 pm or 12.30- 4pm.
Make visitors feel welcome, chat with them about our charity our heritage and history, the building. Bring our stories to life, Answer questions (where you can). Monitor and alert staff to any poor behaviour or damage.
Welcoming and checking in visitors arriving for tours or other activities, and, processing sales of souvenirs. This role is best suited to confident and customer service focussed volunteers.
Our fantastic garden volunteers meet on Tuesday mornings. Join our garden team to get involved in weeding, pruning, edging, garden maintenance and planting projects.
GladRags is a self-led group of textiles volunteers who meet on Tuesday afternoons.
Support our exhibition programme as an invigilator. This role involves welcoming guests and sharing information about our current exhibition. This role may also include selling souvenirs and taking donations.
Tour backstops are a welcoming ambassador for West Horsley Place supporting our regular tours. You will support Tour Guides by collecting tour groups from the welcome area and taking them to the house. You will support the tour guide by ensuring the group stays together and use a radio to call a memeber of staff for assistance if required.
Tours usually take place on Wednesdays and Fridays.
This is a new volunteer opportunity we hope to launch in the future, helping with woodland management, pathway maintenance, ditch and flood management work and specific conservation projects.
Assist with guided walks around the estate. Our guided walks focus on seasonal topics througout the year.
We are developing a programme of regular wildlife recording on the estate. Our bird recording group meets once a month and we're looking to expand this programme to include volunteers interested in additonal plant and wildlife surveying.
This team of volunteers is passionate about making West Horsley Place a fun and exciting place for children to visit during their free time from school. Activities include helping to plan activities, prepare crafts, setting up and idea generating.
Meetings often take place on Wednesday mornings although aren't limited to this time.
Making guests feel welcome at one of our events such as theatre performances or concerts or helping guests find their way around.
Support a young volunteer (aged 16-18) during your shift at an open day or event. This role requires a DBS check.
Assist with youth activities for teenagers. This could include nature, heritage or arts activities and often take place during school holidays.
Our Archive and Library collections belonged to the Crewe family who owned West Horsley Place from 1931 and we have a rich history going back over 1000 years. There are opportunities for volunteers to be involved in cataloguing, reseaching and developing content to share with our audience.
Assist activities in a variety of ways including:
These events are adhoc and can vary from 1.5 hours to 1 day in duration. Timings may be week day, evenings or weekends.
Support our hard working team in the office. Activities include volunteer administration support and evaluation data input. This is a great role for computer savvy volunteers including those looking to develop skills for fututre employment in this area.
West Horsley Place is a Grade I listed Medieval Manor House and Estate of great beauty and significance. The Manor House dates from 1425, though there has been a building on site since the Saxon times. Our recent work to conserve and maintain the house has made our principle rooms safe and comfortable for public access, but the house remains on Historic England's Heritage at risk register.
The West Horsley Place Trust aims to bring the house, gardens and 400 acre estate and eight Grade II listed outbuildings back into good repair and to improve people's wellbeing through art, heritage and nature.
We will give people freedom to explore and discover, to create stories and become part of ours.
