Brockswood

21/10/2026

Booking is LIVE!

Get into the festive spirit and join us at the sanctuary for a lovely morning of Christmas wreath making!
Led by the wonderfully talented florist Pam, this hands-on workshop is the perfect opportunity to enjoy a little festive creativity and make your very own Christmas wreath, ready to take home and proudly display throughout the season.
Whether you're feeling particularly creative or have never made a wreath before, Pam will be on hand to guide you through the process, sharing her knowledge and helping you create something that's uniquely yours.
With just 10 places available per session, the workshop offers a relaxed and friendly atmosphere, with complimentary hot drinks to keep you warm while you work.
Come along, enjoy a little Christmas creativity in the surroundings of the sanctuary and leave with a beautiful handmade wreath to welcome the festive season.

https://www.brockswood.org.uk/event

18/10/2026

A few of you have been asking when the photos from our Dog Show will be available, so we thought we’d share this rather lovely face to reassure you that they’re on their way!

Our lovely volunteer Beth has been busy working their way through all the photos taken on the day, sorting and editing them ready for us to share with you all. As you can probably imagine, with so many wonderful dogs joining us, there’s rather a lot to get through!

Some of you may not realise that Beth was also responsible for some of the gorgeous decorations you will have seen here on the day. They continue to amaze us with their creativity and talents, and we’re incredibly lucky to have someone so willing to share them with us. It’s easy to forget just how much work goes into an event like this, not only in the weeks leading up to it, but also long after everyone has packed up and gone home!

We’ll share the photos as soon as they’re ready, and think you’ll agree we had some rather photogenic waggy visitors. In the meantime we would love to see your photos too! 🐶

15/10/2026

https://movementforgood.com/draws/special/animals-wildlife?cname=Brockswood+Animal+Sanctuary&ct=animals_and_wildlife&ogi=darkblue_5k&utm_source=thankyoumodal_darkblue_5k&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=M4G2025thankyoumodal&utm_id=M4G2025thankyoumodal

We would be so grateful if all of our wonderful supporters could spare a couple of minutes to nominate us for the chance to win £5,000.

This money could make such an incredible difference to our sanctuary. With winter looming the cost of food, hay, bedding and electricity all increase. Our veterinary bills have also increased recently with some of our residents needing specialist treatment.

It only takes a couple of minutes to nominate us, and you can still nominate us even if you have nominated another charity.
Each nomination could help us continue our important work in providing a safe, forever home for our rescued residents.

You can nominate Brockswood Animal Sanctuary between 5th-18th October. Please share far and wide to help spread the word and encourage more nominations, it really can help so much.

As always, thank you all for your continued support. We could not continue the work we do without YOU!

I just nominated a charity to win £5,000..

12/10/2026

Join us for our very first wreath making workshop!

The event will be held here at the sanctuary on the 21st and 28th November from 10am-1pm, and led by the lovely Pam who is a very talented florist. She will guide you along the way to help create the perfect wreath for you.

Keep your eyes peeled for more information and booking links coming very soon!

Don't forget to save the date and share this post with friends/family.

11/10/2026

We took these photos of Teeny Turner recently, and it was one of those moments where you suddenly notice something that’s probably been happening gradually for years. Our lovely Teeny is looking rather old these days!

It’s funny how you can see an animal every single day, know them inside out, and yet not really notice how much they’ve changed until something makes you look at them a little differently. Teeny has been with us for many years now and is well into her teens, which is a grand old age for a sheep.

She’s a little thinner than she used to be, having lost some of that muscle that tends to disappear as animals get older, her teeth are quite worn now and even her fleece has changed. It’s something we notice particularly at shearing time, when the wool on some of our older sheep feels and comes away quite differently to that of the younger ones.

We’ve got quite a few elderly animals here, and one thing that’s always apparent is just how differently they all age. Some seem to carry on almost oblivious to the passing years, while others need a great deal more help along the way. We have residents who need specially prepared diets, medication, additional feeding and all sorts of little adjustments to keep them comfortable and enjoying life. It’s a constant process of watching, learning and adapting, because what works for one animal won’t necessarily work for another, even when they’re the same species and a similar age.

Teeny, thankfully, is doing very well for herself. She’s still living with the main flock, quite happily amongst some of our younger sheep, and although we’re keeping a closer eye on her as the years go by, she’s managing well without needing too much extra help at the moment. Of course, that may change, and when it does we’ll change things to suit her.

There’s something lovely, if occasionally a little bittersweet, about watching animals grow old in your care. You remember them as they were, notice the little changes as the years pass, and gradually find yourself making allowances for things that never used to be a consideration. It’s part of caring for animals throughout their lives, and although the later years can sometimes be the most challenging, they’re every bit as important as the ones that came before.

Anyway, we thought we’d show you our lovely old Teeny. She’s not doing anything particularly exciting, just sitting in the field on an autumn morning or getting herself covered in hay, but sometimes those are the photos that mean the most to us 💚🐑

10/10/2026

Well, our recent announcement about changing our opening days has even made it into the Express & Star!

The mention of maintenance might have conjured up images of us putting up new buildings and transforming the sanctuary into one enormous construction site. We do have some exciting projects we’d love to see completed, and we’ll certainly be chipping away at them as time, funds and helping hands allow, but there’s also rather more to what goes on behind the gates.

There is, of course, always plenty to repair and maintain, but there’s also an enormous amount of sanctuary life that never really makes it out to you here.

We tend to share the lovely photographs, the funny things our residents get up to and the bigger jobs when we manage to get them finished. What you don’t always see are the less photogenic bits, the problem-solving, the decisions, the daily care and all the little things that go into keeping a sanctuary running.

And sometimes the most important thing we’ve achieved in a day isn’t something that makes for a particularly exciting photograph.

So we thought we’d start showing you a little more of what happens behind the gates, particularly on those days when we’re closed to visitors. Not necessarily exciting projects, but the ordinary, often unseen work that goes into caring for the animals who depend on us.

There will probably be mud, mountains of paperwork, arguments with gate posts, and at least one goat causing mayhem!!

Hopefully it’ll give you a little more insight into the sanctuary your visits, donations and kindness help keep going! Because even on our closed days, sanctuary life certainly doesn’t stop 💚

09/10/2026

From next week, we'll be closing to visitors on Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays during term time. We'll still be open as usual during the school holidays, and welcoming everyone from Thursday through to Sunday during term time.

We've been having a good look recently at how we work, how we spend our time, and, perhaps most importantly, what we need to do to make sure we're giving the animals in our care the very best we can.

There's an enormous amount that goes into running an animal sanctuary, much of which probably isn't particularly obvious when you visit. Enclosures need repairing and improvements, fencing needs replacing, veterinary treatments need organising, and then there's the paperwork... so much paperwork! The records, planning, inspections, legislation and all the other things that seem to multiply whenever nobody is looking.

And while all of this is happening, our residents need our time and attention too. Not just feeding and cleaning, but the moments simply spent watching them, noticing little changes, and making sure they're all comfortable and happy. We have some very elderly residents here, along with others who have ongoing health problems, and as we head towards winter we're particularly conscious of making sure we have the time to give them everything they need!

We also have a growing list of maintenance jobs that are much safer to carry out when there aren't little people wandering about the place, particularly when machinery, tools or sections of fencing are involved!

The simple reality is that Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays are our quietest visiting days outside the school holidays. Opening the sanctuary actually costs money, regardless of how many people come through the gates, and with our bills increasing constantly, we have to be sensible about where that money (your kind donations!) is used. We'd much rather put those resources, and those precious hours, into the animals and the work that needs doing than continue opening on days when visitor numbers simply don't justify it.

At the heart of everything we do, Brockswood is an animal sanctuary. Welcoming you here is a wonderful part of what we do, and something we love, but looking after the animals who depend on us has to come first. We don't want to become so busy keeping the gates open that we lose the time needed to do all the things that happen behind them and let our residents down.

So, although we will be closed for those three days, the sanctuary certainly won't be quiet! We'll still be here, caring for everyone, catching up on the mountain of behind-the-scenes work and hopefully finding a little more time for some of the things we've been struggling to squeeze into our days.

We still very much need your support, and hope you'll continue to visit us on our open days. Every visit, donation and bit of support makes a difference, particularly during the quieter months, and helps us keep doing what we're here to do.

Thank you for understanding, and for caring about Brockswood and all the animals who call it home. We think this is the right decision for them, and that's what matters most to us 💚

28/09/2026

Now the chaos of the day is over. We wanted to say a massive THANK YOU to everyone who joined us for our annual fun day and dog show on Saturday!

It was lovely to see so many familiar faces, along with lots of new faces, and your beautiful dogs that joined us on the day too. As many of you know, this event is our biggest fundraiser of the year and helps give us a boost as we begin to enter the winter months; which are tough not only physically with the change in weather, but also financially.

We were uncertain how successful the day would be when we had to reschedule the event last minute in August due to the huge downpours we had after a long drought. We sadly lost a few stalls due to other commitments but we were thrilled that most could make it and even happier that we still had such an amazing turn out!

We hope you all enjoyed the day as much as we did and thank you for supporting all our the wonderful local stalls that joined us on the day. Many of the stalls with us on the day are charities also needing support, so it's always lovely to see so many wonderful charities getting much needed funds too!

We are just gathering all the photos together from the day and will add them all to our page for you all to go through and save any of you/your dogs.

Once again, thank you all so much for your continued support. We could not continue to do the work we do without you and your support, not only at these events, but throughout the year too!

We hope to see many of you back soon for our Santa Paws event, keep your eyes peeled for more information about that very soon!

23/09/2026

Our annual fun day and dog show is only 3 days away!

This is a list of the classes for the day and listed in order or judging. Registration is open from 10am where you can enter your dog/s into any of the classes listed below.

Judging begins at 11am starting with cutest puppy and is then followed down the list until best crossbreed. The judge will then take a quick break before continuing at 2pm with double trouble and the following classes in list order.

If you are booking for one of the morning classes we recommend getting to the registration gazebo first thing to book onto the classes where our wonderful volunteers will assist you.
Registration is open all day until the last class is being judged.

The classes are £2 each and you can enter as many as you like on the day.

Any questions, please pop us a DM and our team will get back to you as soon as possible.

We look forward to seeing you all on the day!

17/09/2026

Due to rescheduling our dog show this year, we now have a few stall spaces become available.

Do you, or anyone you know want a stall with us on the day? Please send an email to [email protected] for more information and to be added to our stalls list.

Our annual fun day and dog show is our biggest fundraiser of the year and a day that's filled with lots of fun for all ages. We have face painting, a bouncy castle, lots of stalls to support and purchase a variety of items from. Don't forget, the sanctuary is open as normal on the day too so you can meet our rescued residents knowing you are helping support them too!

Not forgetting the main event, our dog show. We have a variety of classes to enter for just £2 per class. Not visiting with a dog? You are still more than welcome to come along as normal to visit the sanctuary, watch the dog show and shop the stalls.

As always thank you all for your continued support. We can only continue to do the important work we do with your support and we are so grateful for our wonderful community.

We cannot wait to see you all very soon!