OTLEY teenagers are being blamed for causing a "malicious" trail of destruction in the grounds of an ancestral home.

Four 13 or 14 year olds are suspected of running riot around Weston Hall on Sunday, February 22, when extensive damaged was caused to the historic building's stable block and green houses.

They also destroyed an irreplaceable gardening record of the grounds.

The group, two boys and two girls, had been confronted by the Hall's owner, 85- year-old Colonel Herbrand Dawson, the day before - and his gardener, Mick Woodrup, believes they came back for revenge.

Mr Woodrup, 68, who lives in a cottage on the estate, said: "Colonel Dawson had chased them off but when I went down on the Sunday night they had smashed 14 panes of glass in the stables, gone up to the greenhouses and smashed ten windows up there, strewn the bandages from the first aid kit across the lawn and broken the garden gate.

"They had also burnt my garden diary which I have kept for 15 years and can't really replace, it showed where everything is planted, because it is done on a rotation basis, and the ideal temperatures for different seedlings. All that was left of it was ashes.

"And they sprayed chemicals over our trays of seedlings and broke the sprays. Because the Colonel had stopped them coming through the grounds on the Saturday, when they gave him a lot of abuse, I think theyreturned to do all this.

"It's just clear, wanton vandalism, there's neither sense nor reason to it. The Colonel is very upset by all this, the hall has been in his family for more than 600 years."

Weston Hall has been home to the Vavasour family (although the name itself died with William Vavasour in 1833) since the 14th Century, and has an Elizabethan House and Banqueting Hall set within six and a half acres of land, which includes a small lake.

It is served by North Yorkshire's police force, which sent officers from Harrogate out to survey the damage. But they told the estate there was little they could do unless they caught the culprits in the act.

Incredibly, Mr Woodrup believes those responsible had the effrontery to come back again last weekend - only to subject him to a torrent of abuse when he asked them to leave.

A spokesman for Harrogate Police said: "Youths were seen in the grounds of Weston Hall on Sunday, February 29, and the gardener told us he believed they were the same kids who had been in the week before who caused damage.

"We have assured him we will be keeping an eye on the place."

Meanwhile Mr Woodrup is having to try and get everything back to normal before the Hall, which has an Open Day each August in aid of St John Ambulance, plays home to a visit from the Historical Society.

"It'll take a lot of time and bother," he said, "and it's all been caused by maliciousness. It's just sickening."

Surveying the damage: Gardener Mick Woodrup peers through some of the broken panes of glass in the greenhouse at Weston Hall .