A PARTNERSHIP that has helped conserve one of West Somerset's most diverse countryside estates has ended after 18 years.

Volunteers from Minehead's Seahorse Centre have been working with rangers from the National Trust's Holnicote Estate for almost two decades.

But cutbacks within Somerset's social services means the long standing and mutually beneficial partnership has been forced to end.

And the 'end of an era' relationship was marked with a celebration at the centre.

National Trust rangers were presented with a framed print and a specially made cake iced with the charity's logo.

Come rain or shine, the Seahorse volunteers have spent a day a week at Holnicote, undertaking a huge range of conservation and maintenance tasks.

As well as helping to keep the estate in tip-tip condition by ensuring the villages and surrounding areas were kept clean and tidy, they planted new hedgerows, helped with woodland restoration and carried out footpath management and repair.

They even won a national award with their heather seedling project and also helped in the creation and maintenance of two easy access trails for visitors with mobility problems.

Ranger Paul Camp said: "Without the valuable conservation work achieved by all our volunteers we would find it incredibly difficult to fulfil many of our management objectives on the property.

"However, the Seahorse volunteers were very special to us indeed.

"Being made up of adults with various degrees of learning difficulties, their enthusiasm and passion have been an inspiration to us and a wonderful example of how every individual can make a valuable contribution within the community.

"They will be greatly missed by us and everyone else in the local community."

Mr Camp said he hoped that at some time in the future, the partnership could be re-established.

"In the meantime, we are trying to find other ways in which we can maintain the links with our friends at the Seahorse Centre."

The celebration also included guests from the West Somerset Railway, which has also had to end a similar partnership with the centre volunteers.