Events for 2012

Our current bookings for 2012 are now available to view on the Events Diary page. There are only a handful of weekends remaining so if you are interested in potentially booking us please get in touch soon! The details of our public performances in 2012 will be updated throughout the year - so keep checking in to find an event near you.

Jubilee Madness

The biggest event weekend of the year is only a few weeks off….the nation is hanging out the Union Jack bunting and preparing for the Queen’s Jubilee on what looks like is going to be the busiest bank holiday of 2012. We at RHF are covering 2 events at opposite ends of the country and both celebrate the British monarchy in relation to falconry history (of course!).

Battle Abbey is the stage for our “Sport of Tudor Kings” event where as always you will find our period falconer in the serenity of the walled garden. Displays start at midday and run throughout the afternoons. Learn all about Henry VIIIs passion for hawking and what made the art of falconry so regal.

Brodsworth Hall is the second venue for a larger event entitled “A Right Royal Visit” which is Edwardian in theme and focuses on King George Vs Tour of the North in 1912. We have not visited Brodsworth for many years so this will be a welcome return. The event promises a nostalgic trip into yesteryear and the last days of the traditional country house.

Both events run from Sunday 3rd to Tuesday 5th June but for specific visitor information please visit the English Heritage website.

New Period for 2012

The new year sees the Queen celebrate 60 years on the throne and there are numerous Diamond Jubilee events planned for the special bank holiday weekend at the beginning of June. We have been asked by English Heritage to participate in a Jubilee event that focuses on the British monarchy in the early 20th Century and so we are adding a new time period to our historical repertoire – Edwardian Falconry!

To be strictly accurate the Edwardian period is 1901-1910 but we shall be encompassing the years leading up to the Great War too for it was a tumultuous time for British falconry. As fans of Downton Abbey will know it was the last great age of the country house and subsequently the swan-song of many traditional country sports. Falconry had been restored in the early Victorian Age and gained in popularity attracting noble and even royal patronage, it struggled to survive the fashion for modern guns and game shooting, it adapted to changing social tastes to include women at field meets, to engineer public presentations for spectators of all classes and even to replace traditional hawking ponies with automated motor cars! Never had falconry seen so much change in such a concentrated period of time. All of that magnificent evolution was stopped dead in its tracks with the outbreak of World War I. Falconry did survive the Great War but it emerged new and changed….the old days were gone forever.

So we will be harking back to those nostalgic times when falconers were “gentlemen” and many country houses listed “falconer” among their staff and servants. We shall be recounting real tales of hawking and hunting with falcons, we shall examine the fortunes of our own native birds of prey in the early 20th Century, we shall even reveal how the King accidentally caused the extinction of an entire species of bird. It promises to be a fascinating factual account of falconry and natural history…not to mention some groovy costumes too! Our next unveiling of this new period will be at Brodsworth Hall for the Queen’s Jubilee.