HILLTOP Animal Haven, near Kilkhampton, is a site like no other — including 14 cats, two goats, a shy magpie — plus a whole load more.

Situated at Thurdon, near Kilkhampton, animal charity Hilltop Animal Haven has a simple set-up, but with a big heart. The Post was invited by animal-keeper Sam Bell to find out more about what the charity does on a daily basis.

Stepping into the living area of the house, originally bought by the charity’s founders Charlie Bingham and Gillian Smart, it was hard not to notice the vast amount of cats lounging across the two sofas — and there were even more lazing around in the conservatory and in the hall outside!

The first cat to greet us was Smiler, who, with a stretch of his front legs, made himself known with his sharp claws.

Sam reassured us, simply saying: “He can’t do much more than that — he has no teeth!”

Sam said the charity takes in older animals, and animals that can no longer be looked after, typically taking any over the age of ten.

Smiler and a huge, fluffy, black cat called Monty came to the charity as a pair, after their owner moved to a residential home. On the other hand, Charlie, a white cat who was lounging across the head of the sofa, came to the charity after his owner became concerned due to the main road backing their home in Holsworthy.

In all, Hilltop Animal Haven is home to 14 cats, two dogs — including Larry, who belongs to Sam — 12 horses and ponies, two goats, three sheep, three chickens and ‘Poncy’ the magpie.

The charity was founded in 1984 by the late Charlie Bingham and Gillian Smart. Prior to this, the pair had run a similar organisation with cats, and then purchased the property at Thurdon, where their collection of lovable animals began to grow, as the family of a local farmer who had died wanted to get rid of their feral cats.

Charlie and Gillian then bought their first four ponies for £20 from Dartmoor, where they were destined to be sent for Dartmoor pony meat.

The pair had always kept goats, and the current pair of male goats — two-and-a-half-year-old Stanley and four-year-old Cupid — came to the charity as most goat breeders are never keen to keep the boys as they are not worth as much as the females.

Sitting in the living room, Sam said: “We’ve got 14 cats — Charlie is the newest one. He’s the boss now though; he even beats the dogs up and everything. Our oldest cat is Pebbles, who’s 20 now. I don’t like to ever wake him up, because all he does is call for food.”

There are three animal-keepers within the organisation — Sam, Jonathan and Natalie. Jonathan and Natalie’s partners volunteer with their children, and local home-educated teenagers also help out for a few hours a week.

More than anything else, the charity is urgently seeking funds and donations.

Sam said: “We are seriously lacking in funds. The money we raise pays for vet bills, food bills, wages, farriers, horse dentists. We have the farriers out every six weeks, but it all adds up.”

Attention was quickly switched to the noise around the front door — which Sam suspected might be the ‘crazy dogs’.

German Shepherd-Husky-Labrador mix Larry and border collie Jack are quite a handful, as was proved when the Post later trekked up to their own spacious paddock with Sam.

Sam seemed to breathe a sigh of relief when she realised the dogs were not bounding into the house, saying: “Larry is just one of the biggest dogs — he has absolutely no spatial awareness. He thinks everyone is his best friend, which, a lot of the time, they’re really not.

“Jack came here because he kept biting people, like the postman, and his owner started getting a bit concerned. But he’s never bitten anybody since he’s been here, which is around nine years now.”

The 14 cats live in separate areas of the house, due to some bullying that tends to happen.

“The cats in the conservatory bully the cats in here (the living room), so we keep them apart,” Sam continued.

The charity owns some land not far away, where they keep the horses, while the three ponies are kept on site in the field above the house, along with the sheep and chickens.

‘Poncy’ the magpie is an addition to the Hilltop family that is a little different. Although he loves Sam and the other volunteers, he can be shy around new people.

“Poncy has a bit of ‘stranger danger’, as we like to call it,” Sam said. “A lot of people are very anti-magpie, but I adore that little bird.”

The organisation tries to keep everything as comfortable as possible for all the animals, although they have a few projects in the pipeline that cannot be completed or started until they have gathered enough funds. “We try to keep it as similar to a home environment as possible. They’re all a bit spoilt — even the sheep have sheep sheds!

“We’re currently building a goat shed for Stanley and Cupid, and we’re re-fencing the sheep’s paddocks — although we’ve run out of rails, so until we get more funds, we can’t do anything. We’ve also got to re-fence everything where the horses are — but it’s the same again with that situation.”

Hearing the individual stories about each animal is enough to encourage you to donate.

Although going through his terrible-twos years and having a lot of attitude, Stanley the goat has deformed feet. Instead of sitting straight, they lean out to the sides.

Monty the cat — who is now 8.1kilos after being put onto a strict diet from his former weight of a hefty 8.6kilos — had bladder problems recently, and the team were warned that cats can often die within 12 hours if they are unable to urinate. With a trip to the vet, Monty now plays with the dogs and is back to his normal self.

Sam showed the Post Stanley’s current residence, which he moved into recently due to smashing open the pen door on his former shed. Further up from the house, in the field, Sam pointed out the area that is to be converted into Stanley and Cupid’s paddock — which is being put on hold until further funds can be accessed.

Next up from the goat area, which also is home to Stephanie the rooster — to which Sam simply said, ‘Don’t ask’ — is Larry and Jack’s paddock, where they are free to run around all day with toys and fresh air, and then the sheep’s paddock — home to Sarah and Suzie, the Texel sheep, and Sylvia the Dorset Horn.

“Sarah has three legs — well, she has four, but one doesn’t work,” Sam said. “We spent ages in the vets trying to get it straightened, and suddenly one day it just wouldn’t work at all — it just froze. We had the vet out four or five times, but it doesn’t seem to bother her — she still runs around and gets about just fine.”

Further still is the rest of the field, where Blaze, Pie and Toffee the Dartmoor ponies grazed peacefully. “These are quite wild ponies,” Sam said. “They’ll let the farriers and the dentists see to them, and they let me do most things, but they’re not overly keen on being stroked.”

However, with that, we were able to approach Pie, who let us stroke his nose before trotting off to join Blaze in a particularly delicious patch of grass. “Pie was the first one to let me do anything with him,” Sam said. “Don’t tell the others, but I think he’s my favourite.”

Heading back towards the sheep, Sam told the Post a story about two-and-a-half-year-old Sylvia. “Sarah and Suzie were bottlefed by us. Suzie came as company for Sarah — which is funny because they actually really don’t like each other.

“With Sylvia, a roofer suddenly turned up and said, ‘I’ve got a sheep in the back of the van’. He’d basically found two lambs in an old farmhouse. One was so badly deformed that it couldn’t be kept alive, but no farmer would claim responsibility, so the roofer took the other lamb to us. He called her ‘Babycakes’, but there was no way we were sticking with that name, so she is now ‘Sylvia’.”

The last leg of the trip around the site was a visit to hen Marjorie and tiny rooster Albert, and then to Cupid.

Hilltop Animal Haven is appealing for urgent funds — big or small — that will help towards the care of the animals and their environment.

They accept donations via cheque, PayPal and through their Facebook page’s donate button. To donate through PayPal, donate to [email protected]. Cheque donations can be sent to Hilltop Animal Haven, Thurdon, Kilkhampton, Cornwall, EX23 9RZ.

The charity also produces a newsletter two to three times a year. If anybody would like a copy, please send a self-addressed envelope to Hilltop’s address.