Wharfeside care home celebrates its first anniversary

Residents celebrated the first anniversary of Wharfeside care home in Otley with the Town Mayor Councillor Ray Smith, local school children and members of the public. They also unveiled a sheep as their new mascot. 

New mascot Baaarbara was named and decorated as part of the occasion after being designed by artist Tracey Knight of Creative Minds.

Wharfeside care home was opened in November 2022 when Homes Under the Hammer star Martin Roberts cut the ceremonial red ribbon. 

This week Wharfeside’s residents hosted members of the local community, including the mayor, and Otley Town Crier Terry Ford, at a special garden party to mark the occasion.

Pupils from the local St Joseph’s Primary School helped unveil Baaarbara, who will now stand in pride of place in Wharfeside’s grounds!

Louise Bulcock, Manager of Anchor’s Wharfeside, said:

We can’t believe it’s already been a whole year; it feels like we opened just yesterday! 

We’re really proud of the wonderful community we have here thanks to my wonderful team who’ve worked hard to create a fun, enabling environment for our residents and give them the best possible care.

Thank you so much to Mayor Smith and Town Crier Ford for joining us and celebrating our first anniversary. Thank you as well to Tracey Knight and everyone at St Joseph’s Catholic Primary School for helping us create Baaarbara! We’re delighted to have such a wonderful mascot and looking forward to all the years to come here at Anchor’s Wharfeside care home!

Otley Town Mayor Councillor Ray Smith said:

It gave me great pleasure to have attended this event. It was lovely to witness the result of the interaction between the residents and the school children. I hope there will be many more opportunities for such joint enterprises to take place as they would benefit all participants.

Luke Gilhooly, Headmaster of St Joseph’s, said:

We were delighted to be involved in naming the new mascot! As a school we voted on which name we thought would stick and promote Anchor’s Wharfeside Care Home. The vote was unanimous in the favour of - Baaarbara! We love working closely with the community and believe we have a special partnership with Anchor’s Wharfeside, which we look forward to growing more.

For more information on Anchor’s Wharfeside care home click here.