Friends of Woking Palace

Fun, Finds and Furniture at Woking Palace

This weekend (18th & 19th July 2009) over 300 people took the opportunity to visit the Woking Palace Open Days and get a glimpse of Tudor life at the site of one of Henry VIII’s palaces, 500 years after he was crowned. Some visitors arrived at the Palace site having been led there on a guided walk from St Peters Church via some of the historic areas of Old Woking by Phillip Arnold, a local historian. At the site itself, members of the Friends of Woking Palace provided visitors with guided tours and explanations of the long history of this former royal manor and palace.

An additional attraction was the presence of members of Surrey Heritage. Abby Guinness, the Community Archaeologist, was on hand with a collection of archaeological finds for visitors to examine and also demonstrated basic techniques employed in excavations. Another member of the team, Kate Stuart, was helping younger visitors make jesters hats and jugglers balls so that they could try their hand at entertaining those who preferred just to watch! Surrey Heritage were joined by an entertainer who demonstrated the arts of juggling with the diabolo, jugglers’ balls and clubs and helped visitors learn some of the basic skills.

For many people the highlight of the day was a visit to the vault building, one of the two structures that remain above ground on this historic eight-acre moated site set amid beautiful countryside on the banks of the River Wey. The vault building is so called because of its particularly fine vaulted ceiling made of chalk ribs and early bricks. Inside visitors were invited to step back in time with the help of the delightful displays created by Muriel Tuckey to illustrate aspects of life in Tudor times.

In particular they were able to see the very first items crafted from the Ash tree on the palace site that Woking Borough Council had to have felled earlier this year because it was dangerous. Jean Follett, Treasurer of the Friends of Woking Palace, took on the task of managing the project to ensure that the timber did not go to waste. With funding from the Lottery Heritage Fund and assistance from other members of the Friends she arranged for the timber to be planked, transported and stored prior to be turned into various items of “Tudor” style furniture by local craftsman, Clive Gunning. So far he has produced a wonderful tabletop on which were displayed elements of a Tudor meal, a pie table such as was used to carry great pies into Tudor feasts and a particularly splendid chair decorated with carved fleur de lis. Clive, who is believed to be the only traditional tool-handle maker left in England, gave demonstrations on both days of the production of tool handles using a brake and a shave. He will be creating more items from the Ash wood for the vaulted building in the months to come. These will be included in the displays at future Open Days which this year will take place on Sunday 9th August, Saturday 12 September and Sunday 13 September.More

You too can become a member of the Friends and be involved in projects such as this to preserve and enhance this Scheduled Ancient Monument. More