Royal couple to visit West Sussex

AS PART of the Diamond Jubilee celebrations, the Earl and Countess of Wessex will be visiting West Sussex on Friday June 8.
By The Newsroom
Published 21st May 2012, 11:53 BST

The Royal Couple will be visiting four venues in the west of the county:

Canine Partners in Heyshott. This popular charity aims to transform the lives of people with disabilities by providing them with highly trained assistance dogs which enable them to live more independently. Their Royal Highnesses will have the opportunity to see dogs at various stages of training, meet recipients who benefit from the dogs, and the organisation’s volunteers.

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The Weald and Downland Museum at Singleton. The Royal Couple will tour this open air museum and meet volunteers and representatives of the uniformed youth voluntary organisations from the county. There will also be the opportunity for young people from the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award scheme to meet the Earl and Countess.

Pallant House Gallery, Chichester. Home to an unrivalled Collection of Modern British Art, the Gallery has won numerous awards since reopening in 2006 with a contemporary extension, including the Gulbenkian Prize, the largest prize for arts and cultural organisations in the country. The judges awarding the prize described it as a ‘jewel of a gallery’. Their Royal Highnesses will tour the award-winning Gallery and view the current exhibitions – Keith Vaughan: Romanticism to Abstraction and The Art of Chichester Festival Theatre: A Celebration. They will also meet staff and participants from the Gallery’s pioneering Community programme.

Festival of Flowers in Chichester Cathedral. This has been described by The Church Times as ‘The Gold Standard’ of Flower Festivals. During the Festival the Cathedral is transformed by the talents of 150 flower arrangers working with than 50,000 flower stems. This year, the theme is ‘Every Book Tells a Story’ and more than sixty British books will be interpreted in flowers, trees and gardens. Their Royal Highnesses will have the opportunity to see a number of displays, as well as meeting their arrangers and organisers of the Festival.

Commenting on the proposed visit, The Lord-Lieutenant of West Sussex, Mrs Susan Pyper said: “We are most grateful to their Royal Highnesses for agreeing to visit us as part of Her Majesty The Queen’s Diamond Jubilee celebrations. We are hoping that they will enjoy the four venues that we have chosen, which reflect the diversity of what our special county has to offer.”