My friend Chris Leyland, who has died of cancer aged 62, was that rare breed – a farmer for whom people mattered as much as the livestock in his care. In his native Northumberland, his most recent achievement was securing a future for the unique, 800-year-old Chillingham breed of wild cattle. Appointed park manager at Chillingham Castle in 2005, Chris used his farming expertise to double the herd numbers to more than a hundred today, by reversing decades of decay in their habitat.
But he will be best remembered by the Northumberland farming community as leader of a campaign that led to the creation of Bell View, a visionary approach to the housing and care of old people in Chris’s home town of Belford.
A decision by Northumberland county council in 1997 to close the Bell View residential care home had threatened to isolate its inhabitants from their friends and family by relocating them miles away. Supported by a small army of volunteers, Chris managed to raise £1.4m towards a new home and community centre for older people, which became a model for similar schemes elsewhere in the UK.
Chris, who throughout the campaign continued his day (and night) job as a farmer, was appointed chair of the newly formed Bell View Trust and in 2006 was made MBE for his tireless work.
He was the son of Michael and Teresa Leyland, who farmed at Greymare, near Belford, where Chris was born. After leaving Stowe school, he went travelling, working his way through the far east to Australia, before returning to the UK to train at the Royal Agricultural College (now University), Cirencester, and to farm as a tenant at Greymare. He and his wife, Georgie (nee Chichester), whom he married in 1985, later bought the farm
After his appointment as manager of the Chillingham Wild Cattle Association, Chris set to work planting thousands of trees and rebuilding the ancient park wall and deer shelter. The resulting increase in cattle – and visitor numbers – has reversed the fortunes of the park.
Chris’s infectious humour, energy and inventiveness won him the affection and admiration of the north Northumberland farming community, where he will be greatly missed. He faced even the darkest days of his long illness with great courage and humour.
He is survived by Georgie and their two children, Emma and Ben.
