Twelve brave SSE employees put their nerves to the test whilst volunteering at the historic, Wymering Manor in Portsmouth, Hampshire.
Wymering Manor is the oldest existing house in Portsmouth built in 1581 and has featured on TV series ‘Most Haunted’ and has had many uses over the years including a vicarage and youth hostel.
In January 2013 the Wymering Manor Trust was handed responsibility of the manor from Portsmouth City Council and works together with support from volunteers in the local community and its working partners.
The SSE volunteers took a day out of their normal working lives as part of the company’s ‘Community at Heart’ scheme and were provided with jobs from the Trust to do some maintenance work at the Manor.
Ciarán Hazlewood-Harmer an IT Service Desk Analyst for SSE said: “The weather was great and allowed us to spend the day working in the garden of the manor. We worked in small teams cutting down overgrown ivy, pulling weeds and even succeeded at removing a tree stump.
“There was more than enough work to be done and we all thoroughly enjoyed getting out in the fresh air and doing something a bit different whilst making a difference in the community.”
Andy Mason, one of the Wymering Manor Trustees commented: "SSE staff were a great help when they came to Wymering Manor, clearing our garden of ivy and weeds. The help SSE provided means that we can now start planting a community garden to benefit local people"
The trust recently received £50,000 from the Big Lottery Fund to help in its restoration.
Since Community at Heart’s launch in 2009, our employees have dedicated over 24,000 days (the equivalent of 194,000 hours) to thousands of deserving projects right across Scotland, England, Ireland and Wales.
If you have a project that you would like our volunteers to help out with you can find out more information about how to apply here