A BARNARD Castle landmark appears to have to have provided inspiration for architects creating Prince Charles’ designer village in Dorset.
The play park at Poundbury, the Prince’s purpose-built town on his Duchy of Cornwall estate, is to open in the spring and will have 15ft high towers with suspended bridges and walkways, as well as swings, slides and a parkour area.
Already comments have been made about the remarkable resemblance of one of the constructions, called the Buttercross, to Barney’s 275-year-old Market Cross, sometimes known as the Butter Market.
Architects told Dorset Council planners last year they wished to reflect some of the landmark features of Poundbury in the £860,000 play park.
The octagonal timber construction is a recreation of Poundbury’s brick-built Buttermarket Bakery.
The resemblance of both these buildings to Barnard Castle’s Market Cross, constructed in 1747 by sheep merchant Thomas Breaks, is perhaps no surprise.
Prince Charles has been a regular visitor to Teesdale through the years, most recently four years ago when he officially opened the Quad Emergency Hub in Barnard Castle. His late grandmother, the Queen Mother, spent family holidays at nearby Streatlam Castle as a child and was patron of the Friends of the Bowes Museum from 1962.
The Royal family enjoyed shooting trips on the Holwick estate in the 1980s.
