Henry Lytton Cobbold

Well, the daffodils were out, but the sun was still on its winter break for our Parish Open Day.  Despite a bitter north wind and water-logged roads, about 200 parishioners joined us to celebrate the first Sunday of our Season.  We lit a fire in the Banqueting Hall and were treated to a spirited performance by an a cappella vocal group from Yale University called “Out of the Blue”.

Thrilled to hear they were performing where Charles Dickens once performed, eighteen 18-year-olds from all over the United States sang lively versions of contemporary pop songs.  Especially impressive was the vocal percussion, which got the audience moving – and thawing out!

For our younger visitors, after a wind-swept tour of the dinosaurs, there was story-telling in the Picture Gallery as part of the North Hertfordshire Book Festival.  It was a fun day – and, as every year, very pleasing to hear that for many of our neighbours it was their first visit inside Knebworth House, and that they now plan to come more often… but maybe next time on a less dark and stormy day!

Henry Lytton Cobbold
www.knebworthhouse.com

Invitation to all residents of Knebworth Parish – join us as we herald the beginning of Knebworth House and Country Park’s 2008 Season with our Parish Open Day on Sunday 16^th March.  Free entry to everyone who lives in Knebworth Parish to the Park, the Playground, the Gardens, the Dinosaur Trail and the House.  And, a special bonus this year – as part of the Hitchin and North Herts Book Festival – a costumed storyteller will be reading to children in the House Library at Noon and at 2:30pm.  I’ll be in the Banqueting Hall all day and very much look forward to welcoming you and answering any questions you have about the house, our summer event schedule… or anything else you think I might have the answer to!

Please enter via the white gate by St Mary’s Church (not Junction 7) – pedestrians too please – and bring something with you that proves you live in the parish (a bill with your address at the top – or, even easier, a copy of this magazine).   Hopefully the daffodils and the sun will be out in a burst of yellow, and we can celebrate the end of a gray winter and the prospect of a bright blue summer!

Henry Lytton Cobbold
www.knebworthhouse.com

It’s an early start for us this summer season, as Easter falls in March and one of our most popular events moves forward to a pre-season weekend.  Our Country Show, which has been blighted by May rainfall in recent years, has moved to the weekend of 8^th and 9^th March, before the Park opens.  Our regular facilities – the Adventure Playground, the Dino Trail, etc. – will still be closed that weekend, but the Country Show offers so much to do and see that there will be plenty to entertain all members of the family.

Our season begins officially on the following weekend – 15^th March – a week before Easter.  There are a number of new events and changes to our traditional schedule, so I encourage you to take a look at the Special Events page of www.knebworthhouse.com.  We are delighted to announce that one event will stay the same – our Parish Open Day, when we invite all residents of Knebworth Parish to visit the House and Park as our guests.  This is scheduled for Sunday 16^th March, and details will be in next month’s column.

Henry Lytton Cobbold
www.knebworthhouse.com

As members of the Literary Homes and Museums of Great Britain, Martha and I recently visited the National Library of Scotland in Edinburgh and were bowled over by their state-of-the-art John Murray Exhibit.  The John Murray Archive is one of the world’s richest literary manuscript collections, including works by Lord Byron, Jane Austen, Charles Darwin – not the easiest thing to display to the public.  How do you make pieces of paper interesting for visiting tourists and children?  The NLS has Star Trek-like pods that light up suspended objects, and touch screen tables that respond to hidden projectors, rich with quirky anecdotes and bespoke animations.  Down here on earth, at Knebworth House, we don’t have pods or projectors, we have the trusty house guide.

It is the enthusiasm and delight with which our guides tell the stories of Knebworth House that enthralls our visitors and brings history alive from the simplest piece of paper scribbled on by Charles Dickens or faded old photograph of Winston Churchill.  Whether it is dressing up in old Tudor pantaloons or explaining a tongue scraper to a ten-year-old, our guides are indefatigable in their desire to entertain and enrich our visitors.  And we have the results to prove it.  Whilst our park admission numbers took a dive in 2007 (remember the rain?) our education group numbers leapt up from 2589 to 4399.  If you’d like to join our happy team of house guides, currently aged from 16 to 86 – please call Mia Herbert on 810934 or email mherbert@knebworthhouse.com.

A Happy New Year from all the team at Knebworth House!

Henry Lytton Cobbold
www.knebworthhouse.com

I hope yours will be one of the open minds attending the open meeting in the Village Hall on Wednesday 5^th December.  The Knebworth Options Report, commissioned by the Parish Council – with the support of the Knebworth Village Trust and the Knebworth House Education & Preservation Trust – is to be presented at the meeting for debate, at this vital time for our community.

The Local Development Framework represents a crossroads for Knebworth Village – one that this generation will not face again.  The LDF is establishing planning policy until the 2020s.  Greenbelt boundaries – which are to be extended and reduced (more of the former, the Prime Minister assures us) – will not be reassessed again until the 2030s.

Stevenage is getting bigger – it’s already got our secondary school children; now it wants our doctors, our post office, our library, our builders’ merchant (see www.knebworthgreen.net)…  We can baton down the hatches, and sit tight.  Or we can meet the challenge – and promote an evolving community, strong enough to maintain its own services and sufficiently endowed to hold safeguards beyond local authority budgets.

Or we can move to the West Country.  My problem is, I can’t.  So I will be there on 5^th trying to make sense of it all.

Martha joins with me in wishing you a very Happy Christmas,

Henry Lytton Cobbold
www.knebworthhouse.com

Well, the results are in from our Summer Season and, in common with many other leisure and heritage attractions, they don’t make very pleasant reading.  After such a promising start at Easter – that sunshine seems a long time ago! – We were dogged with week after week of disappointing weather.  Not only did the rain fall on some of our more important events, but we lost our September picnic concerts because the promoter went bust on flooded events elsewhere.  In preparing our Summer Season for next year we are finding that one or two of our regular promoters are saying they cannot afford to return.  England!  It would be the best place in the world to live if it had a roof!

But 2007 is not over.  Not only is the Park now looking as beautiful as ever, dressed in glorious autumn colours, but we still have our two popular Christmas events to look forward to.  Put Saturday 8^th and Sunday 9^th December in your diaries for our “Christmas Craft Fair”.  Then, on Friday 14^th, Saturday 15^th & Sunday 16^th December, Colin Greenslade returns to the Banqueting Hall for his perennial fireside reading of Charles Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol”.  This year Colin, by popular request, is also going to add to his performance “Christmas At Dingley Dell” from “Pickwick Papers”.  Now there’s some pleasant reading to see off 2007, whatever the weather!

Henry Lytton Cobbold
www.knebworthhouse.com

In August’s Parish News we were warned to expect a consultation on North Herts District Council’s Development Control Policies and Preferred Options for the Local Development Framework to commence at the end of September.  I don’t know what the Regional Spatial Strategy and North Herts District Council have in store for us, but if we are required to make a sacrifice to the needs of the wider community, I want as much benefit for our parish as possible.

As a long-term resident, I want the problems solved that are beyond local authority budgets – congestion in our High Street, the threatened loss of our Doctor’s Surgery, the inadequacy of our school provision, the preservation of our heritage – and I want development that is not about squeezing as many residences as possible into the smallest possible space.   But money dictates, you say – then let’s take money out of the equation by offering land to North Herts District Council where all proceeds go to Parish charities.  We can offer as little or as much as suits the community, depending on how green we want our development and how many problems we want to solve.

It was this sort of thinking that led to my little speech in the Village Hall this time last year.  If the Local Development Framework requires village-edge development on Knebworth Estates land, the Estate will look to donate 100% of the proceeds to Knebworth Parish charities, as long as the Knebworth House Education and Preservation Trust is a priority.  The offer still stands.  I want to keep our green fields, but I also want to keep our high street, our doctors, our school kids and our four-star historic house.   If we are faced with a negative, let’s turn it into a positive.

Henry Lytton Cobbold
www.knebworthhouse.com

The Home Office paid a surprise and welcome visit a couple of weeks ago, in the form of Vernon Coaker, Under-Secretary of State.  Mr Coaker visited Knebworth Park in the wake of the floods and foot & mouth outbreak to stress that the English Countryside is alive and well, and open for business as usual.  He encouraged families not to shy away from the countryside and to make the most of excellent local attractions, such as beautiful Knebworth Park.

Over tea in the Garden Terrace Room I was able to thank him for his support – and particularly for singling out Knebworth Park – but I also took the opportunity to express my opinion on the Government’s current Rights of Way policy, which makes “business as usual” increasingly difficult.  Worse, the policy is having a negative effect on what it is trying to achieve.  Instead of opening up the countryside, the Government’s one-sided legislation is forcing farmers, landowners and those who look after the countryside to batten down the hatches.  Now every walker who is not strictly adhering to a footpath has to be challenged.  Now absurd amounts of time and money, both private and public, are being spent arguing ancient highways which ceased to be hundreds of years ago for practical and good reason.  Now insurance and legal costs are ballooning to protect against spurious claims and the general public’s abjured responsibility.

Hertfordshire is well served for footpaths, and because of them our beautiful countryside can be enjoyed by everyone.  Those who care for the countryside want their fields and their labours to be enjoyed – but they need support and a livelihood, not more red tape and legal expense.  Mr Coker’s vocal support is much appreciated and the Government is well-intentioned, but legislating beyond common sense only raises the hackles, and creates distrust and ill-feeling.  Yes, do not shy away from the countryside, but also, do not shy away from the responsibility of its maintenance, nor its occasional mishaps – and let’s re-open that two-way path of trust and understanding between those who care for the countryside dearly, and those who care for it daily.

Henry Lytton Cobbold
www.knebworthhouse.com

Following on from Mike Jones’ letter about the Cricket Club in last month’s edition, I’d like to say thank you to all those who have sent letters of support – and concern – about the initial Jubilee Park proposals.  We look forward to discussing each and every issue with the planning, conservation and wildlife officers, and incorporating their solutions, suggestions and requirements into future proposals.

Of the many comments we have received, very few have suggested alternative sites.  I still believe Jubilee Park has the most potential for both the club and the village.  I echo my father’s thinking of the 1980s when he suggested creating the Village Green – that it would improve Old Knebworth both visually and in terms of community spirit.  Our destiny may be as a commuter dormitory and thoroughfare to the Stevenage supermarkets, but personally I prefer to live in a village that thrives as a community; and has – at least in terms of leisure – a sense of destination.

I can see the club’s current playing fields now, out of my window, and I consider them a very attractive part of the landscape.  They are kept and loved.  In the winter I enjoy watching the children play jumpers-for-goalposts.  Although not a cricketer myself, I enjoy being the club’s neighbour.  Of course the club needs to try and think commercially (an activity at the mercy of the weather is prone to lose money) and certainly it helps to get Government funding the more the club opens its arms to other community sporting activities.  But I believe, as a community, we can find an acceptable balance.  We mustn’t lose sight of the fact that this is a volunteer-run, not-for-profit, village cricket club.  If we want it to survive we must help it adapt, like all village organisations, to an increasingly-regulated, insurance-dictated, 21st Century.

In this respect Jubilee Park has another possible advantage – it may be possible for the club’s landlord to become the Knebworth House Education and Preservation Trust charity (currently 80% shareholders in the Old Knebworth Amenity Company, which manages the Village Green).  KHEPT not only has the potential to reduce, if necessary, the club’s commercial pressures, but also is presided over by the elected leaders of our local authorities.  I believe we could trust the Trust to maintain a balance acceptable to the community.

Henry Lytton Cobbold
www.knebworthhouse.com

One of the suggestions made in the Parish Plan is that Knebworth House and Park could improve communications with the community, particularly regarding major events.  We’ve already made changes – this regular column in the Parish News is a direct result of that suggestion.  It has long been our policy to inform our direct neighbours and Old Knebworth resident associations about our major events – and of course we work hard with the licencing authorities to ensure we minimise local disturbance – but I am pleased now that, in this column, I can highlight to the wider parish anything out of the ordinary in our forthcoming season.

Well, for 2007, there is nothing out of the ordinary planned!  As becomes increasingly apparent, the major concerts for which we are famous now come along, on average, every six or seven years, when there is an artist successful enough to attract 125,000 fans.  The quick turnover in the music industry nowadays is not conducive to the sorts of acts who justify that sort of show.

There are, however, two non-perennial music events planned for 2007 – both considerably smaller.  On Saturday June 30th, we host the Renaissance dance festival in North Park (beyond the Adventure Playground) for up to 14,999 people.  This is scheduled to run from 6pm to 6am, and will be a third of the size of a similar dance festival that took place (very successfully) in 2001, and this time there is no outdoor stage.  Then on Saturday September 8^th and Sunday September 9^th, we are pleased to announce the return of two picnic-style concerts, for up to 4,000 people. The first is a Classical Prom and the second features a Queen tribute band and Gerry and the Pacemakers.  Thus, there’s music for all ages and all tastes in the Park this summer – we hope to see you there.

Henry Lytton Cobbold
www.knebworthhouse.com