A bond was quickly formed between
the three (and Emma’s partner, Darren) as well as an instant
love of wearing
the gowns and being ladies of the Tudor court. Coupled with a shared love of
everything Tudor a firm friendship grew between them. The Roses officially
arrived in August after the girls got in contact and voiced their desire to put
on their gowns again, but that Saturday back in June was the real start as it
was inevitable that the Roses was going to happen. So after a casual discussion
between Darren and Emma about the Hever day, a nudge to get Emma to get in
touch with Katherine and Erica and an out of the blue “You could call
yourselves The Tudor Roses” from Darren, the ball was sent well and truly
rolling.
Logo created, Facebook page setup
and website designed the Roses were good to go and the first step for them was
to make an appearance on 27th August 2011 at a charity event organised
by Restore Rochester Castle (now an official charity), the open air premiere of
the film Ironclad in the grounds of Rochester Castle itself. The showing was
put on by Nomad Cinema and was attended by the Mayor and ex-mayor of Rochester
and two of the main stars of the film, Jamie Foreman (Eastenders) and none
other than James Purefoy himself accompanied by Florence; the massive sword he
wields in the film. Lady Emma and Lady Katherine were the Roses present at this
event and did a splendid job of emptying all those bits of annoying shrapnel
(commonly known as loose change) out of the public’s pockets – as well as some
of the paper variety too – and collecting it all together in the collection
buckets. They also impressed the guests with their dresses, as well as Jamie
and James too, and posed for photos with all. Darren was there with his trusty
camera which was to become a feature of any visit by the Roses to any event as
he was drafted in to be the official photography as well as taxi driver and
lacing-up-dresses-type-person.
From this highly successful first
official outing as the Roses the next stop was a weekend of jousting by the
Knights of Royal England and the lovely Leeds Castle where Lady Emma and Lady
Erica were privileged to be the Knights’ queens, with Emma being Anne Boleyn on
the Saturday and Erica as Jane Seymour on the Sunday. This was our first large
scale public appearance and it was a great success all round and highly
enjoyable. From this first time working alongside the Knights we have worked
with and alongside them many times since and it is always a pleasure to do so;
even playing rugby along the way – ladies against knights!
With a couple of other bits
between then and the end of the year our year was perfectly rounded off by
being asked to take part in a Christmas Tudor Banquet at Hall Place in Bexley.
Here we were to be found meeting and greeting the guests as they arrived,
chatting with them as they had a glass of something and then directing them to
their seats for the food – which was amazing incidently; especially the haggis!
There was much merriment to be had and Emma, Erica and Katherine entertained
the guests with some impromptu Tudor dancing to the tunes of Serpentyne who
provided the live Tudor music. But for us, the highlight of the night was being
introduced to the sweet honey fire water they call Mead; Lady Erica especially
enjoyed it!
With Christmas well behind us,
the New Year passed, 2012 saw us a pretty busy events diary with plenty of new
and exciting new venues that were going to see a visit from The Tudor Roses. We
shall not bore you all with by recounting every single event and what we did
and saw but instead just list all the lovely Tudor relevant places we had the
privilege and honour to see, several of which we got to visit more than once.
In no particular order we
visited;
·
Sudeley Castle
·
Hever Castle
·
Cowdray Ruins
·
Ingatestone Hall
·
Layer Marney Tower
·
Hedingham Castle
·
Rochester Castle
·
Nonsuch
·
Dudley Castle
·
The Vyne
·
Barrington Court
To highlight a couple of these
venues we shall first mention Sudeley Castle which saw them hold their first
Tudor Fun Days to mark the 500th Anniversary of Kateryn the Quene –
KP, who lays in rest at St Mary’s Chapel within the grounds. Her tomb is a
fitting monument to such an amazing, and very much overlook and
under-estimated, Queen and person. Just being in her presence, so close to the remains
of a Queen of England and one of Henry VIII’s wives is a very humbling
experience and one that feels you with a strange sense of calm. The Tudor Roses
were very proud to be asked to Sudeley to be part of the yearlong remembrance
of Lady Latimer, Queen Katherine - 6th Wife of Henry. Katherine
Parr’s final home and resting place was visited by the Roses five times for the
Tudor Fun Days and also for their Halloween Happening in October.
The second, lighter hearted event
in 2012 was at Dudley Castle where we were part of a live Paranormal Show
called Psychic & Science. This was a live investigation into the paranormal
world of ghosts, spirits and mediumship by the nationally renowned
investigators Compass Paranormal. This late night event was a very memorable
one and one at which we had much fun. What wasn’t fun was the mad morning rush
the next day down to The Vyne in Basingstoke – though it was very much worth it
as the Vyne is an impressive place to visit and to go Tudoring ( as we like to
call it).
Not mentioning in detail the
other venues is not to diminish their impact on us and their importance within
the Tudor world, especially when you get to walk amongst such things as the awe
inspiring ruins at Cowdray or watch the jousting at Hedingham Castle and to
gaze up to the top of the tower at Layer Marney or to be struck by the largely
untouched Tudor architecture of Ingatestone Hall. I mean, who can fail to love
wandering around Hever Castle or marvelling at the beauty of Leeds. We can only
say thank you to all the venues that had The Tudor Roses as their guests in
2012!
Right, on to 2013 and what a year
it has been. We are pretty much at the end of our season as this blog post is
being typed with only a tour at Layer Marney Tower on 8th September,
Nonsuch Awareness Day on 15th September and the last Sudeley Castle
Tudor Fun Day on 22nd September to go. We have just completed the
final bank holiday weekend at Hedingham Castle and are very much looking
forward to being back there next year with all those we are rapidly beginning
to regard as our Hedingham based Tudor family.
The list of places visited this
year pretty much reflects that of 2012 with a few exceptions, those being
Dudley Castle as that was a one off event, Cowdray Ruins as sadly they pretty
much closed due to lack of funding and cost of running – though they have
started opening on a limited basis and hope to carry on next year which is
fabulous news as Cowdray is one of our favourite places we’ve been, and also so
far Rochester Castle but watch this space, the year isn’t over yet!
In several cases this year we’ve
had to split the Roses in two to cover more than one place at a time as it was
impossible not to double book events on occasions. Leading on from this is a
good time to mention that The Tudor Roses has grown from the original three
ladies to now numbering seven plus two little lords in the shape of Emma and
Darren’s sons Jonny and Matty, and now also the Roses’ very own thorn as
finally Darren has put the camera down (not permanently we hasten to add, it
will still come out from time to time) and put on the tights, well, lower
stocks actually! So the Roses now have ten members and are ready for the new
season with new locations. We have also had some guest Roses this year and
last, three of which have become permanent members. To those who have been
guests we say thank you for sharing in the fun and we hope you can join us
again next season. To the two who could not make it this year the offer is
still open and we hope to have you along next season; you know who you are.
Along our Tudor journey we have
made some very good friends including The Knights of Royal England, those permanently
based at Hedingham Castle including the Norfolk Longbowmen, the owners and
staff of venues and Steve and Joanne from Lavenham Falconry – Jo being our
latest Rose, our Hedingham Rose!
A very close bond and friendship
has formed between the Roses and Lavenham Falconry and we have worked very
closely with Steve at Hedingham Castle and at his displays at his new site.
This working relationship is developing and evolving for next year to
incorporate many exciting ideas and concepts – definitely something to look
forward to for us and we hope for all of you that follow and support us and
generally love everything Tudor. The birds at Lavenham Falconry are brilliant
to work with and are repeatedly under threat of being stolen by certain members
of the Roses, not to mention Alice who works at Hedingham Castle.
Something that we are very proud of and pleased to be able to say we have done is to be involved with Alison Weir’s tours this year and last, being at Hever Castle to meet and greet her tour guests as they arrive at Hever for their first night – a great and much appreciated surprise for all on the tours. Alison is one of the nicest people we have met along the way and we love working with her, we’re honoured to number her among our supporters and friends of the Roses. In 2012 Emma, Erica and Katherine were treated by Alison to a not easily forgotten dinner experience with her tour guests at Hever and this year Emma, Darren and Katherine were invited to stay and watch the amazing play Fallen in Love: The Secret Heart of Anne Boleyn by Red Rose Chain. Emma Connell and Scott Ellis are brilliant actors and brought Anne and George’s story to life using just themselves and a bed that turned into an execution scaffold. Darren, Emma and Katherine actually went to The Tower of London to watch this play (off duty for a change) on the last evening of its run – watching it again at Hever was every bit as good as the first time at The Tower; two locations very relevant to Anne and George.
On a side note we’ve seen an
addition to our repertoire with Lady Emma carrying our several school talks
this year as part of their history curriculum as well as other Tudor related
talks. She was also involved in an annual three week Tudor living history event
for school children. We’ve also been
part of a Tudor themed wedding at Hedingham Castle and as mentioned above been
involved in tours at Layer Marney Tower. Book launches, falconry and Tudor dancing
can also be added to the list – we like to keep busy and to keep offering more.
Oh, and let’s not forget a spot of archery with proper longbows. The Tudor side
of London has also been shown. To wrap up what we have gotten up to we just
need to mention the photo shoots that we have had at various Tudor locations.
All that is left for us to say
now is thank you to all of you that have supported us these two and a half
years of Tudoring and we hope that you will continue to do so into the future.
We invite you all along on our Tudor journey as we grow and expand and bring
you more of what you love – everything Tudor. We also hope that some of you
will be reading as new to The Tudor Roses and will join us on our Facebook
page. The link for that and our website, plus Twitter account will be included
at the very end of this post. Look out for a completely revamped website coming
over the winter months and for improved video Blogs that is something we
started this year – we promise we will keep practicing during the off season.
Thank you to Judith for asking us to write this brief, well brief'ish, history
of the Roses so far, we enjoyed looking back over the last two and a half
years, reliving many good times and looking forward to even more to come. We
also need to mention Mr Russ Allen, a lovely fellow and husband to Lady Debbie
who has stepped up not only to chauffeur Debbie to events but also to fill the
shoes as photographer of the Roses when Darren plays dress up!
We hope you all enjoyed reading
this guest post and again, THANK YOU to all of you for your support. We look
forward to having you with us next season and we hope to meet many of you at
the events we attend.
Thank you from Darren, Emma,
Jonny, Matty, Erica, Katherine, Francesca, Rachel, Debbie and Joanne – The
Tudor Roses!
Lastly, thank you to all the
Roses from Darren and Emma for making the Roses what they are, the success we
have enjoyed, the hard work you’ve all put in and most importantly for all the
fun we’ve had Tudoring with you – the Mead is on us, here’s to next year!
http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCG3XyAYF5l-B8eEjisrkJsA
(The Tudor Roses YouTube channel)
info@thetudorroses.co.uk
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