Residents of the village of Bulmer near Malton have stepped in to take over a job normally done by sheep.

Because of the foot and mouth outbreak, farmer Martin Foster had been unable to put his sheep and lambs in the graveyard of St Martin's Church with the result that it had become overgrown.

And so, resident Janet Foster mustered a team of 20 other villagers to emulate the sheep. Armed with mowers, strimmers, scythes and rakes they spent a day making the churchnyard trim.

"But after a day's work we had hacked down only half of what the sheep would happily chew through the summer so a second Saturday's toil was necessary to restore the churchyard," she said.

A similar clean-up was mounted two weeks ago at Amotherby churchyard where members of the congregation and villagers are creating a wildlife conservation area and rebuilding an old stone wall.

Updated: 14:33 Thursday, August 09, 2001