“5th February 1974. Dear Mr Condy – I don’t know quite how to put this, but when you kindly showed my wife and I the park I was struck by the obvious suitability of the area for a one day popular music concert. I was not, I can assure you, going to take this any further, but by an amazing, and genuine coincidence I received the very next evening a phone call from the manager of a well-known group expressing interest in my company promoting an outdoor event, featuring this group. I realise it is rather presumptuous of me but I wonder if you could possibly submit the following proposals to the Hon. David Lytton Cobbold… By way of closing, I would like to emphasise that when I originally approached you, my interest in running a large scale medieval entertainment was genuine and not in any way an elaborate subterfuge, Sincerely, Freddy Bannister.”
And the rest is history. 2014 marks the 40th anniversary of Britain’s biggest and best rock venue. Knebworth Park will celebrate in the summer with an exhibition in Knebworth House celebrating all 40 years of our rock concert history, and with the return of Sonisphere, the festival which ran successfully between 2009 and 2011. Sonisphere returns on the first weekend of July with another UK first for Knebworth Park – Metallica and Iron Maiden on the same bill. These two bands together have 45 million “likes” on Facebook – that’s a lot of people to get excited about them playing at the same event. And these two “well-known groups” want to be part of a “popular music concert” on our “suitable” hill, because 40 years later, they join a list of now-legendary names – such as the one pencilled in on the above letter by Mr Condy as “Lead Zeppelin” (sic) – who have made history in Knebworth Park!
Happy 2014 to all!
Henry Lytton Cobbold
www.knebworthhouse.com