A wealthy benefactor has left £25,000 in her will to benefit the people of Burley in Wharfedale.

Unknown to many in the village Mrs Daphne Sharpe had made annual donations of between £1,000 and £3,000 towards the work carried out by the communcity council.

And when the widow, who shunned publicity, died earlier this year the people of Burley were remembered again - with a £25,000 bequest to the community trust.

The gifts, which she prefered to keep quiet, began when Mrs Sharpe moved to the village with her husband Donald about15 years ago.

The couple made annual donations of £1,000 to the community council until Mr Sharpe's death in 1994.

But he too remembered his neighbours, with a £10,000 bequest, of which £8,000 went towards turning the dream of a village green into a reality.

For the past five years his widow has given an annual gift of £3,000 to Burley - unknown to many people in the village.

But that was the way she prefered it, according to community council and trust member Mr Tom Sumner.

He said: "When she moved to the village 14 or 15 years ago she obviously read the local newspapers and she saw the work that the community council was doing."

Mr and Mrs Sharpe decided to give financial help to the council, which was not able to raise a precept and so had to find its own funding.

Mr Sumner said: "She never liked anyone to know what she was doing. She was very secretive in the sense that she didn't want her name bandied around the village. She was a very private person."

He said the couple, who did not have children, had owned Sharpes Cards but had sold up and retired to Burley.

He said Mrs Sharpe was well liked and would be missed.

He added: "She was a very generous woman, and there are a lot of organisations throughout the area that have benefitted from her generosity."

"She was a very kind benefactor and even after her death she was still doing something to help the village."

The Trust is now considering how to spend the bequest.

Mr Sumner, who visited Mrs Sharpe every day she was in hospital, said her donations over the years had helped bring innumerable schemes to fruition, one of which was the Pudding Tree Garden.

"So many projects have been helped by her money. There has not been a project that we have done in the last 15 years that her money has not gone towards."

But he stressed that many other people in the village had also been generous over the years.

"They were the biggest bene-factors - but not the only ones. Other people have donated money no matter whether it was a small or large amount.

"Their generosity does not de-tract from the people who come and give us £5 in the street. That £5 donation means just as much to me."

Mrs Sharpe died on July 31 and was buried in a family grave at Nab Wood Cemetery after a church service in Saltaire.