IT is one of Worcester’s most notable buildings – indeed it’s the city’s second oldest and most historically significant after the cathedral – but the Old Palace in Deansway usually manages to keep a discreetly low profile.

However, it hit the headlines earlier this week when the Diocese of Worcester decided to close the café there because it was running up “huge losses”. Cue protests from regular users and possibly a good old-fashioned rumpus the Church could likely do without when it’s trying to attract more customers.

But that will be as nothing compared with what the scandal sheets might have led on had the scribblers been a bit more on the ball back in 1788. That was the year King George III attended the Worcester Three Choirs Festival and stayed for several days at the Old Palace, together with the Queen and their princesses.

“Farmer George” as he was affectionately known, loved to talk to his subjects without formality and there’s a marvellous tale about his remarkable “Meet the People” activities at Worcester.

It’s recorded that in the early morning, he would climb out of a first floor window of the Old Palace, slide down the roof of an outbuilding still in his bedclothes and make his escape to enjoy a stroll alone around the city, where he would chat cheerfully with his humbler subjects.

Just imagine what the red tops today would give for paparazzi shot of The Queen – or more likely Prince Philip – shinning down the Old Palace drainpipes in their jim-jams en route to a wander around Angel Place on a Saturday night.

In fact the Old Palace was the home of the Bishops of Worcester before there was even a King of England. The building dates back to around 1270 and in the centuries since has played host to several of the nation’s monarchs, including Elizabeth I and Charles I, as well as the third King George.

For a long time it was the official residence of the Bishop of Worcester, but in the 1840s the Church of England Commissioners came to the conclusion the bishop no longer needed the luxury of three homes – Hartlebury Castle and a property in London were the others – and Bishop Pepys, who was in post at the time, opted to drop the Old Palace. This was a decision which rebounded somewhat on the Commissioners, who had an eye on getting rid of Hartlebury Castle. So the property in Deansway was sold to the Dean and Chapter of the Cathedral to become the Deanery.

However, in the early 1900s the extensive building was deemed too big for the home of a Dean and turned into the official headquarters of the Worcester Diocese and a Church Club. Albeit it now a club without a café.

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