Salisbury Rotary Club > News > ROTARY VISITS CLARENDON PALACE

ROTARY VISITS CLARENDON PALACE

Members of Salisbury Rotary Club recently walked from Laverstock to Clarendon Palace. The Palace is set in the midst of the privately-owned Clarendon Park estate and the visit coincided with a Friends of Clarendon Palace working party being on site. 

 On arrival, they were met by Professor Emeritus Tom James of the University of Winchester, who has studied, and worked on the site for decades and has also written definitive books about it.

 Professor James gave a fascinating talk about the site and its importance in the context of English history. This was followed by a guided tour of the site, where he pointed out many interesting features that would otherwise go unrecognised, and whose significance would not be appreciated.

The Palace, now a ruin, and the surrounding deer park, were key sites for the English monarchy from the twelfth to the fifteenth century.  Together with Westminster Hall in London, they were the two largest royal palaces in the realm for much of that period.

 Clarendon provided a grand location for business and recreation. For example, it is thought that some 1,800 people gathered there at the time of the Constitutions of Clarendon in 1164 arising out of the dispute between Henry II and Archbishop Thomas Becket.

 The group walked back to Laverstock with many suddenly aware of how little they had remembered about the history of their own country, and their proximity to such an important feature in that history, but grateful for the opportunity to have their knowledge and experience enhanced by one of the leading authorities on Clarendon.

 An afternoon tea was kindly provided by one of the Rotary Club members at their home, where the walkers were joined by others who had been unable to complete the walk.

 

 

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