Brooklands Nurseries and Coffee Shop - A beautifully positioned nursery in the heart of Last of the Summerwine Country

Wandering wallaby comes home!

Oct 17 2003 The Huddersfield Daily Examiner

By Hazel Ettienne

A WANDERING wallaby had police and his owner searching high and low in the Holme Valley yesterday.

But in true boomerang fashion Wallace, who lives at Brooklands Nurseries at Totties, near Holmfirth, returned home safe and well.

Nursery owner Carl Brook said Wallace must have had "a domestic" with his expectant partner Wilomena, before walking out. Mr Brook got a call from a woman in Scholes at around 10am to say she had a wallaby in her back garden.

"I'd no idea he'd gone. But when I walked down to the enclosure I saw a hole. There'd been fireworks going off the night before and they must have spooked him."

Carl rang the RSPCA, Kirklees Dog Wardens and eventually the police to help get Wallace home.

A five-hour search was made in Scholes, Jackson Bridge and New Mill but Wally kept one jump ahead...

But when the weary searchers returned to Brooklands he was waiting for them.

He was treated to a couple of digestive biscuits and his favourite over ripe bananas to help him recover.

Robins steal the show!

May 28 2003 By The Huddersfield Daily Examiner

A FAMILY of robins is causing a stir at Scholes.

The robin and her brood of four fledglings have set up home in a tray of plants at the Brooklands Nurseries at Totties.

And despite hundreds of visitors to the garden centre, they are making themselves very much at home.The birds are nesting beneath the large leaves of a pumpkin plant on a rack of seed trays.The mother bird flies in and out collecting food for her young, much to the delight of visitors, including sisters Emma and Lucy Christofi, who are keeping an eye on the birds.

Nursery owner Carl Brook said: "They seem totally at home, despite the hundreds of people walking past the nest over the holidays."

click image to enlarge

Sitcom's plot needs an extra-special touch
(this article appeared in the Huddersfield Daily Examiner Wednesday November 20th 2002)

GARDEN centre owner Carl Brook will be following the plot closely when a new series of Last of the Summer Wine begins next year.

For he transformed part of his site at Brooklands Nurseries at Totties, Scholes, Holmfirth, into an allotment for an episode in the long-running BBC sitcom. Garden centre staff planted a small plot with vegetables, including beans and potatoes.T hey also provided a set of old gardening tools for the actors to use during the two days of filming. The look was completed with a chicken run and two ramshackle sheds, supplied by the BBC props department.

The scenes involved Summer Wine regulars Peter Sallis as Clegg, Frank Thornton as Truly, Tom Owen as Tom Simmonite and Keith Clifford as Billy Hardcastle. The episode also features actor Christopher Beeney, best known for roles in the period drama Upstairs Downstairs and ITV sitcom In Loving Memory. Mr Brook said: "The crew filmed here last year and returned this year. They picked the site because of the views it offers over the Holme Valley. "It was a pleasure to have them here." He joked: "They said the coffee at our coffee shop was far better than in their canteen!" The episode will be screened next year. The photograph: PLOT LINES - Brooklands Nurseries owner Carl Brook (third left) with (from left0 Tom Owen, Frank Thornton, Keith Clifford, Peter Sallis and Christopher Beeney at the specially-constructed site at the Brooklands Nurseries.