Mexborough & Swinton Times – Saturday 06 July 1912
The Royal Visit
Eagerly Awaited in South Yorkshire.
Outline of The Programme.
Conisboro’ Castle’s Distinction.
Bearing Royal Standard Once More
Viscount Halifax Honoured
The King and Queen are to commence a visit to Yorkshire, where they will be the guests of Earl and Countess Fitzwilliam, at Wentworth Woodhouse on Monday.
The Royal train is due to leave King’s Cross on Monday afternoon at 1 o’clock, arriving in Doncaster shortly after 4 o’clock. Their majesties will be received, though not with anything suggesting State ceremony, by the Mayor of Doncaster and Corporation on the platform of the Doncaster railway station, and very briefly, in a few minutes at his disposal, the Mayor and members of the Corporation will be presented to him.
Then the King and Queen with the host and hostess will take their seat in the big Limousine car, which will be waiting at the end of the eight other cars, reserved for the Royal entourage, and will proceed towards Wentworth by way of Balby and moans to Conisborough, where a halt is to be called and tea taken at the castle.
At Conisborough Castle
The cars will come round by the Star Inn, and enter the village by Brooke Square. They will make a complete circuit of the castle, going along Burcroft, round by the Station Inn, and up Dale Road, where the Royal Park will alight opposite the Castle gates.
The castle grounds are absolutely and strictly private for this occasion, but the authorities in charge of the two are granted permission for the children to be arranged inside the gates in order that they may have a good view of the King and Queen as they enter the grounds.
A marquee, accompanied by a small army of waiter and provisions, will have been sent over from Wentworth during the morning, and these will all be in readiness for the arrival of their Majesties.
The halt at Conisborough is not expected to last more than half an hour.
It was the expressed desire of the Queen that the Castle should be visited. Her Majesty is very much interested in the ancient pile, and has expressed a wish to inspect it. After tea the King and Queen will be escorted over the Castle keep by Mr W Lowery Cole, C.C., agent to the Countess of Yarborough, owner of the castle, and he will explain to them as briefly as possible its history.
After what must, perforce, be a somewhat harried inspection, the Royal party will leave the Castle by the Castle Hill, and going past the Coronation Park (given to Conisborough by Mrs Godfrey Walker, they will strike the Sheffield road at once, and proceeding by way of Hill Top, Hooton Roberts (the rumoured burial place of the famous Earl of Strafford, one of the most illustrious of the Fitzwilliams), and killers, go straight ahead to Wentworth, which they will reach shortly before 6 o’clock in the evening.
They are due in Conisborough between 4:30 and 5 o’clock, and for the half hour which will be occupied in the Castle grounds, there will be the memorable sight of the Royal Standard floating from the Conisborough Castle keep, that magic single of the royalty reposing below. That alone should be a proud site for loyal Conisboro’-ites. Practically all the arrangements for the stay at Conisborough have been made from Wentworth.
Tuesday’s Big Programme
On Tuesday the King and Queen will spend a busy day in the mining towns in South Yorkshire. Leaving Wentworth early in the forenoon, the Royal party will visit Rotherham and make a tour of inspection of the Silverwood Colliery.
Afterwards it is arranged at the Royal procession received via Rawmarsh, Swinton, Mexborough, and the Woodlands to Hickleton Hall.
Ten Miles an Hour Through Swinton
It has been arranged at the pace of the Royal progress shall be regulated according to the density of the thoroughfares through which it will pass. From Rawmarsh through the Haugh, up to Swinton, the nine cars will proceed at a spanking rate, and this is not the best district in which the gain anything like a steady view of their Majesties and their cavalcade.
Nevertheless, it will, doubtless, be well patronised by sightseers, because of the ready facility with which the spectators can get across to Wath and Brampton for second you when the Royal party are on their way to the Elsecar Colliery in the course of the afternoon. The Royal visit will pass from Rawmarsh from 1230 to 1245, and will proceed from the office to Swinton Common. Here the pace will be slowed down to 10 miles an hour, for, though the long, straggling main artery of Swinton cannot ordinarily be called a busy thoroughfare, it will be heavily thronged on Tuesday with the Kings loyal visitors, and will be fairly strongly policed right from the Common to the Mexborough boundary.
Seeing that Kilnhurst, after all, is missing from the route, and arrangements have been made to give the schoolchildren of Kilnhurst, together with some of the Swinton children, a view at the top end of the town; and the remainder of the children will be assembled in the Market Place.
A half Holiday is being granted all the schools in Swinton for the occasion, and the scholars will be dismissed from school earlier in the morning than usual, in order to give the children ample time for dinner, and to take their places along the line of the route. The municipality will be represented with dignity; though the King and Queen are not staying in the parish, the occasion will in no sense be a municipal one, and there will be no attempt at the presentation of an address.
The Councillors, with the Chairman, Mr Colin Ward, J.P., at their head, and the Council officials, will be assembled on the steps of the Carnegie Library to give their Majesties a loyal greeting as they pass by. The Council workmen are granted a half holiday for the occasion. As the Royal progress through Swinton will not occupy more than eight minutes from passing the Woodman tram Hall Street in the Mexborough boundary, it is not deemed necessary to declare a general holiday, the townspeople are left by the Council to decorate as their impulses of loyalty dictate. Judging from previous occasion of national rejoicing, there should be a gallant display of bunting in Swinton, despite the difficulty of providing streamers along the main thoroughfare, a difficulty created by the obstructing tramway trolley wires.
The Parish Church choose will of course ring a merry appeal, and all the vehicular traffic will be stopped in our or so before their Majesties are timed to arrive.
Walking Pace through Mexborough
At Mexborough, the busiest place on the line of route, the cars will be reduced to walking pace, and undoubtedly Mexborough, honoured for the first time by a visit from a reigning monarch will certainly have the best opportunity of observing and paying due homage to Royalty.
The route will be policed from Swinton boundary to the Toll Bar, and fairly heavily in High Street, which will, no doubt, be densely packed with spectators.
The original intention of the organisers of the tour was that their Majesty should proceed straight from Mexborough to Hickleton Hall, where they and their escort are to lunch, and the line of route selected was via Adwick Road, through Adwick on Dearne, by Harlington Lane end, through Barnburgh, and so direct to Hickleton, a journey of some 20 minutes duration.
Then the Chief Constable, Major J.W. Atcherley, vetoed Adwick on Dearne on account of the dangerous twists and turns of the highway through the village; and finally, somewhat to the dismay of the loyal inhabitants of three picturesque villages, this section of the plan was abandoned in favour of an excursion to the modern village of Woodlands.
Another alteration in the route is the abandonment of Bank Street and Doncaster Road, and there Majesties, after passing an assembly of over 2,000 children of the elementary schools, who will sing the National Anthem from the Montagu Square as they go by, will take the low road, by the Council offices, where the Councillors (with Councillor J Wood as chairman) and Council officers and other public men will be assembled; along market Street by the Old church, past the Montagu Park, where the students of the Secondary school and the children of the Adwick Road elementary school will probably be assembled; along the New Road, into the last stretch of Doncaster Road, and so by the Toll Bar House, where they will run clear of the cordon of police, and proceed along the Pasture Road.
Here for the first time since they left Silverwood colliery they will strike into unbroken pastoral country and it may be that as they steadily mounted high Melton Hill and proceed on the Doncaster main road they will find the sylvan beauty of Melton Park, the stately home of the Montagus, not unworthy of admiration. But for the afterthought which included Woodlands, they would have turned to the left at the end of that long steep rise, and passing the Ludwell cottages they would have switched back into Barnburgh and so on to Hickleton in a trice.
The Journey to Elsecar
After luncheon at Hickleton Hall, their Majesties will proceed without any undue delay to the Elsecar Colliery, owned by their host; and they will proceed by way of Hickleton village, Goldthorpe, Bolton on Dearne, Wath on Dearne, Brampton Bierlow and so straight to Elsecar. The route will of course be lined with loyal subject of the King, but beyond individual decorations and a holiday given to the schoolchildren, no special preparations can be made by the local authority, as the Royal party is not stopping at any point, and will indeed proceed at a fairly brisk pace over most of the group, in order to reach Elsecar at half past three or thereabouts. The difficulty of the Bolton and Wath councils is that they are present uninformed as to the exact route after leaving Goldthorpe. The visitors may either reach Bolton by way of Furlong Lane, or by way of Highgate, (which is more probable), and leaving Bolton, they may either come into Wath at the East End, of the railway crossing, and they may turn sharply to the right, and enter by way of the two railway bridges (the likeliest course).
King Down the Mine
The King is expected to reach Elsecar Main Colliery, belonging to Earl Fitzwilliam, between three and 4 o’clock on Tuesday afternoon. The King, as it is understood, will descend the shaft of the colliery, which is sending 50 yards deep, and be taken on one of the main road for about a mile to a point where the miners may be seen engaged in getting coal.
The road, which is odd, as a height of 24 feet, and is supported by iron girders to ensure its safety. Each drive will stand beside the head of his pony in order to obviate the possibility of accident through a run away. Traffic will also be suspended until the special corf in which the King will ride has completed its journey.
Queen and Conisborough Castle
In making their visits in the West riding there majesties were arriving each day in a limousine car with glass sites, and there will be a cottage of nine cars. The excursions have been planned by Lord Fitzwilliam. There is to be no sort of ceremonial, no guards of honour, and municipal representatives will not attend in their robes. It is understood that the Queen expressed a particular wish to visit Conisbrough Castle during a stay in Yorkshire
A Visit to Wombwell
Wombwell will be honoured to know that it is included in the route of procession of the King and Queen on their visit to Barnsley and Wakefield. It is officially stated that their Majesties will pass through to the town at 10.45 on Wednesday morning. This is the first time in the history of Wombwell that Royalty has passed through its area, and it is to be hoped that every child will be given an opportunity of seeing their Sovereign and Ruler, as it is a chance that may never come again in their lifetime. Wombwell is always British, and on this occasion we can surely say that it will show its loyalty and patriotism, and the display of decoration were given insight of the true feeling of its inhabitants.