News
The Prince of Wales visits Scarborough
13th September 2007
The Prince of Wales was in North Yorkshire today to visit the newly refurbished Rotunda Museum and St Catherine’s Hospice in Scarborough.
The Prince arrived at Scarborough station on the Royal Train, which has just been converted to bio-diesel fuel.
The train has recently been converted to run on fuel processed from waste vegetable oil and will cut CO2 emissions by 19 per cent.
A Clarence House spokesman said: "Both Clarence House and Buckingham Palace were very supportive of this move as it's another way they can help do their bit."
The planned visits to farms in the North Yorkshire Moors this afternoon were cancelled after the new outbreak of foot and mouth disease in England.
In his role as Patron of the Mutton Renaissance Campaign, The Prince had been due to officially launch the new mutton season at Grange Farm in Levisham, near Pickering, by tasting a dish of mutton stew, freshly prepared by chef Brian Turner.
His Royal Highness was also scheduled to meet farmers and business leaders at Hill Top Farm in Spaunton to understand the challenges facing farmers in the North Yorkshire Moors.
A spokesman from Clarence House said: "The Prince of Wales is so sorry that the new outbreak of foot and mouth disease means that he is unable to visit Grange Farm and Hill Top Farm in the North Yorkshire Moors. His heart goes out to farmers everywhere and he hopes and prays that this desperate situation will soon end."
The Prince’s first engagement in Scarborough was at the newly refurbished Georgian Rotunda Museum on the town's seafront.
His Royal Highness arrived to crowds of children waving Union Flags and music from the Scarborough Spa Orchestra.
The Prince met museum trustees and supporters, including DJ Sir Jimmy Saville, before greeting the cheering children.
His Royal Highness was then shown inside the circular, domed museum of geology, which is due to open next year, where he viewed a 160 million-year-old fossil of dinosaur footprints before being presented with his own group of fossilised ammonites.
The museum was built in the 1820s to a design suggested by William Smith, the ‘Father of English Geology’, in order to exhibit the fruits of his labours.
The rebuilding of the Rotunda, which is the centrepiece of the regeneration of the South Bay in Scarborough, has been overseen by the Scarborough Museums Trust.
His Royal Highness then visited St Catherine's Hospice, which provides care for adults with advanced, progressive diseases and has to raise £3.2 million in funds each year.
The Prince chatted to patients, staff and volunteers before helping to plant a tree in the garden.
As His Royal Highness left, he congratulated the staff, saying: "Well done for all the marvellous things you do, keep it going."
Sir Jimmy said the Royal visit was an honour for the town. He said: "It's a great honour for anybody to have a visit like this, it puts us right on the map."
Sir Jimmy, who has known The Prince for 42 years, added: "In case he had forgotten who I was I introduced myself today as Lord Lucan and, because he's got a terrific sense of humour, that was him finished for the next five minutes!"
During the day, The Prince of Wales spoke of his sympathy for farmers over the latest foot and mouth outbreak.
He said: "It's a combination of horror and huge blows for the poor upland farmers who rely on their pedigree sales at this time of the year.
"For them, for all the poor farmers, particularly the livestock ones, it's a complete nightmare to have another outbreak and everything brought to a grinding halt.
"It's a real, real blow for people. You can imagine how much anxiety and despair there is there because they depend so much on these sales for their income."
The Prince also spoke of the problems farmers would face by being left with livestock on their farms for much longer than imagined and the associated costs.