Picnic at the Palace Success

Submitted by Sophie Cringle on Wed, 2010-07-21 11:55
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Last Sunday’s first Picnic at the Palace, in Kings Clipstone, wasn’t blessed by the best of weather but was still a great success. Despite the weather, about 800 people were there to mark the official re-opening of the King John’s Palace site.

Kings ClipstoneCounty Councillor Richard Butler, Cabinet Member for Environment and Sustainability, and Mark Spencer MP performed the official re-opening.

Speaking for the village group Friends of Kings Clipstone, Steve Parkhouse told us:

Organising this from scratch in just 6 weeks required a lot of effort and we couldn’t have done it without help from outside the community. North Midland Construction provided the money and the Sherwood Forest Trust help with organisation and contacts. The support of Edwinstowe groups, such as Men of Sherwood stunt re-enactors was also invaluable. We were very determined to retain a village feel to the event with local people doing things for local people and to provide a good old fashioned family day out.

With two kings, a prince and an Archbishop of Canterbury represented in the pageant, we hope that our visitors went away with a greater awareness of the part the Palace played in the important events in 1194. This was another significant step for our campaign to make sure people everywhere knew about, not just of Sherwood Forest’s Robin Hood legends, but of it’s real history which is just as fascinating.

This was a great day for me, Michelle Bradley owner of the site said.

I never thought we would get to this stage. For 200 years from 1750 the Palace was seen as an important place to visit. Then for 60 years there was a danger that the remains would be lost because the prevailing view was that it was just a small hunting lodge. No end of people present on Sunday said that they didn’t realise just how important a building this was in its prime, and what lovely views you get over Sherwood Forest, but then that is why the Palace was built here in the first place. We would love to hear about any visits to the palace made by your readers in years gone by.

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