News
TRH spend a day in Suffolk
31st July 2008
The Prince of Wales and The Duchess of Cornwall visited Suffolk today.
In Southwold, Their Royal Highnesses visited a Prince’s Trust supported business and local brewery Adnams.
At Serena’s Gallery in Southwold, they met owner Serena Hall, who established the business eight years ago.
At the age of 15, Serena received support from a Princes Trust business mentor who helped during the early stages of her business, which has ongoing support from The Prince’s Trust.
She later received a Princes Trust grant, which went towards opening her first studio. In 2001 Serena won the Princes Youth Business Woman of the Year Award.
Afterwards, Their Royal Highnesses visited some stalls in the market-place before heading to the Adnams Brewery where they were given a tour of the brewery and met staff.
They also tried a new beer, thought to be the first beer produced by a carbon neutral brewing process.
Adnams’ ambition is to be as socially responsible as possible, with the intention of drastically reducing their carbon footprint and eventually becoming carbon neutral.
In March 2008, Adnams officially opened the new brewery in Southwold, which has been built to extremely high standards of environmental efficiency.
The new brewstream is a state-of-the-art installation, which recovers 100 per cent of the heat from each brew to reheat the next. This has a positive effect on the environment by reducing the amount of gas needed during the brewing process.
Later in the day, The Prince of Wales, as President of Business in the Community, and The Duchess of Cornwall visited the White Hart Village shop, as part of His Royal Highness’s ‘Pub is the Hub’ Initiative.
The ‘Pub is the Hub’ was initiated by The Prince of Wales through Business in the Community, one of The Prince’s Charities, in response to the closure of many British country pubs and other rural services such as shops and post offices.
Set up in 2001 through the Rural Action Programme of BITC, Pub is the Hub encourages breweries, pub owners, licensees and local communities to work together to help retain and enhance rural services in isolated rural areas using the pub, the traditional heart of many villages and hamlets.
While in Lowestoft, Their Royal Highnesses also visited the Samaritans of Lowestoft and Waveney.
Samaritans is a confidential emotional support service for anyone in the UK and Ireland. The service is available 24 hours a day for people who are experiencing feelings of distress or despair, including those which may lead to suicide.
The Prince of Wales has been the Patron of the Samaritans since 1999.
The Prince and The Duchess later visited Snape Maltings. Their Royal Highnesses started their tour of Snape Maltings at the Farmers’ market where The Duchess was presented with a posy before they visited a selection of stalls.
Snape Maltings is an extensive complex of Victorian buildings situated alongside the last tidal stretch of the River Alde, looking out on to the estuary.
Approximately 40 per cent of the Maltings have been redeveloped since industrial operations ceased in 1965 when local farmer George Gooderham bought the site.
George Gooderham embarked on a piecemeal regeneration of the Maltings and today the family employs 73 staff in a range of activities (crafts, art, retail and catering) and host the annual Aldeburgh Food & Drink Festival.
Today the derelict buildings account for 60 per cent of the Maltings, representing 152,000 sq. ft with average floor widths of 15-20 metres and ceiling heights of 1.8 metres, it became evident that major challenges needed to be overcome to find economically viable uses for the conversion of these Grade II listed buildings.
The Prince was then shown the design and model and was given a briefing on the re-development of the Snape Maltings complex while Her Royal Highness visited other parts of Snape Maltings.
Afterwards, they visited the Concert Hall and watched a music rehearsal before departing.