Open day - Easter Monday (9th April 2007)

A public open day to explain the sites and our proposals and provide an opportunity for villagers and the public to comment on our proposals and give us some feedback.

150 visitors came from near and far to learn about the important historical sites in the village. One couple had walked from Big Barn Lane in Mansfield, another from Sutton in Ashfield. Given a guided tour of the Palace ruins, Great Pond of Clipstone and water meadow sites by Mickie Bradley and Steve Parkhouse, our visitors proved very enthusiastic about our campaign to save these important  parts of our heritage.
               
Not only did our visitors stay for the tour which took over an hour (we had planned on 50 minutes) but they then stayed to ask alot of important questions and examined the exhibition in detail as well as talking to our helpers about the proposals.

Nearly all had no previous knowledge of the sites or the village and were amazed to find the ruins  of an important royal residence in the area, a complex of buidlings used by all the Plantagenet Kings. Typical comments were "Absolutely fascinating and extremely informative history that needs sharing and saving" and "excellent - walking in the Lionheart's footsteps" - this from one couple who lived in Mansfield.

We had worried about the affect of the extra traffic on the village but no one noticed a thing.

We've now decided to give villagers and local history societies another chance to come by offering an evening session as part of National Archaeology Week in July.

Some of our visitors comments

There were to many comments about how mush they had enjoyed the visit to record.

• Must be conserved.
• Heritage centre should be on the main road.
• No idea so much history on my doorstep.
• Absolutely fascinating & extremely informative history that needs sharing and saving.
• Disabled visitors access needed.
• General public will want close convenient parking.
• Disabled parking needed.
• On site visit much clearer to understand.
• Shame to loose it.
• Very interesting, we should not loose this site it is part of our heritage.
• A great deal of heritage on our doorstep worth working to preserve & recover.
• Would love to see an educational facility about the site created in the future.
• What about disabled access?
• Further investigation of the site would be very interesting – also tracking down of possible scattered artefacts.
• Would love to see water dyke in place to see better.
• I think to make a feature of the Dog & Duck meadow and a Great Pond would be a particularly great improvement for villagers and visitors alike.
• Very informative. During the tour, we realised how under-rated the area is. We are sitting on one of the most valuable assets in the county of Nottinghamshire, and unless we take immediate action to preserve this environment, it will be lost to future generations.

Note - at the moment the sites are fields - the plans envisage a surfaced multiuser path connecting the national cycle route to the Palace then to the pavement at the top of the Rat Hole.