Rising from the ruins
Work on a £1.3m project to restore the ruined Archbishop’s Palace in the grounds of Southwell Minster is set to begin this month.
The plan is to open up the palace to more people, to provide opportunities for learning groups and stimulate tourism.
The Great Hall will be restored and updated, the ruined walls of the palace will be restored and an education garden created.
The project will also see the installation of a kitchen, music library, studio flat for the resident organ scholar, and a lift to the first-floor state chamber.
On the ground floor, a rehearsal room will be created for the girls’ choir and the Minster Chorale, along with public toilets with disabled facilities.
Work on the ruins will provide training opportunities on the conservation of the historic fabric of ancient buildings.
Lay Canon Liz Rose and project architect Mr Mark Goodwill-Hodgson have organised training courses for members of the Royal Institute of British Architects and English Heritage.
A-level students from The Minster School will learn about the history of the ruins and conservation.
Liz Rose said: “We have also had interest from the Southwell Community Archaeology Group. The Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings has asked if we could have an event for them.”
Mr Charles Leggatt, of Southwell Minster, who is co-ordinating the project, said the Great Hall and the palace ruins were nationally important buildings.
“The palace is first mentioned in the Domesday Book and sits the footprint of a large Roman villa,” he said.
“Most of the medieval kings stayed here – the surviving state chamber was their bedroom – and Cardinal Wolsey spent the last summer of his life in the palace, trying in vain to appease the wrath of Henry VIII.
“King Richard the Lionheart was an earlier visitor in 1194. Charles I used the palace several times during the Civil War. There is a tale of him returning to the palace dejected when a Southwell tradesman refused to sell him a pair of shoes, sensing that the king’s time was nearly over.”
Mr Leggatt will be joined for a public consultation in the Great Hall on Saturday, September 21, by Mr Goodwill-Hodgson and the project’s activity co-ordinator, Dr Alix Slater.
Discussion groups will be held at 11am and 3pm.