Royal visit marks major milestone at Woking Palace

The Friends of Woking Palace were delighted to welcome His Royal Highness: The Duke of Gloucester to view what had been achieved during the course of the past seven seasons of excavations on this Scheduled Ancient Monument.

Funded in the early years by grants from Woking Borough Council, Surrey County Council and Surrey Archaeological Society, the large community element led to the Friends being awarded a substantial grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) for an expanded project including not just the eight acre site but also the large Park that surrounded the moated complex.

The Duke was greeted by Lady Louise O’Connor, Deputy Lieutenant of Surrey, and was introduced to Mrs Elizabeth Kennedy, High Sheriff of Surrey, Cllr Derek McCrum, Mayor of Woking, Mr Jonathan Lord, MP for Woking, Mr Paul Hudson, Chair of the Heritage Lottery Fund South East Committee, Mr John Kingsbury and Mr Ian Tomes, both of Woking Borough Council. He also met Miss Jean Follett, Hon. Treasurer of the Friends of Woking Palace and Mr Richard Savage, Chair of the Steering Committee of the Woking Palace and its Park project.

Rob Poulton, Director of Excavations, explained some of the features in the trench to HRH The Duke of Gloucester. Lady Louise O’Connor, Deputy Lieutenant of Surrey, on the left of the picture and Richard Savage, Chair of the Steering Committee of the ‘Woking Palace and its Park’ Project, on the right.

They were all welcomed to a site humming with activity as volunteers, from the experienced to those completely new to archaeology, carried out their tasks. The Duke met school children from Hoe Bridge School learning the basics of excavation, finds processing and history of the site. He saw a variety of community participants, including those on the ‘Dig for a Day’ course enjoying their first taste of life in a trench, working alongside experienced volunteers; supervised by Mr Rob Poulton, Director of Excavations, and his team of professional archaeologists from the Surrey County Archaeological Unit.

In addition there were people, inspired to take their interest further, engaged on a ‘Basic Skills’ course.The Duke paid a visit to the ‘Finds Area’, where more volunteers were assisting. Here he viewed and discussed some of the wide variety of finds made during the course of the excavations at this Tudor Palace and medieval manor.

Andy Lobban, Friend of Woking Palace and volunteer digger, explains some of the features in the trench to visitors Mr Jonathan Lord, MP for Woking; Cllr Derek McCrum, Mayor of Woking; Mr Ian Tomes, Asset Manager, Woking Borough Council; Mrs Elizabeth Kennedy, High Sheriff of Surrey, Mr John Kingsbury, Leader of Woking Borough Council; Mr Paul Hudson, Chair of the South East Committee of the Heritage Lottery Fund.

Work stopped briefly while everyone gathered to watch the unveiling of a plaque by His Royal Highness to mark the end of the seven seasons of community excavations. They learnt that this was not the end of the project. In addition to the dig there have been volunteers researching the history of the site and the next stage of the project includes bringing together all the work on the history and archaeology into a full report on the excavations, an illustrated booklet on Woking Palace and its Park and a major new permanent exhibition at The Lightbox.

Mr Paul Hudson observed that “Thanks to money raised by National Lottery players, we were able to fund the wonderful ‘Woking Palace and its Park’ project that gave local people, especially large numbers of schoolchildren, an invaluable opportunity to get hands-on experience in archaeology over the past 3 years and help bring the Palace’s most intriguing stories to life. It was great to see what a success the project has been and we’re proud at HLF to have been involved.”