Royal showground

[Bruce Almighty]

Everything that was good they ban or close.
Central of Country location the lot.
Royal Show Summer.
Smithfield Winter.
Heard Grassland etc.there moving also? is it?
What about Stonleigh Abbey and parks etc.?

Grassland moving because of HS2

 

[upnortheast]

As far as I know RASE does not own Stoneleigh now. Think a big property company have it.
Havn`t a clue if RASE even exists & what its roll is
As someone who remembers the Royal Show in its prime I find it sad to go there & see it looking so run down.
Apart from NFu / AHDB (wonder who`s money build that palace ?) & a few others it`s a shadow of what it used to be.

As the show went downhill I spoke to a number of the "bowler Hats " asking what their plan was. The attitude was "Its the Royal Show, people will always come " - Wrong !

 

[Derrick Hughes]

That went years ago
As said above, it's in a sorry state.

The Kennel Club is based there & I think their expansion means Rugby Farmers Mart have to move from there soon

HS2 will go through the grand ring (if it happens)

How could it all go so wrong ?

Thanks, so many happy memories . Those Simmy Beef Rolls I will never forget

 

[neilo]

It’s like a ghost town of slowly decaying buildings and show facility

Amongst the decay are a few active buildings like the (very) facncy AHDB and NFU offices

The halls there are still used and have sone shows like the shooting show (until it moved to the nec last year) retro race etc and buildings like the Aurther Rank Center still host various conferences and meetings

Seem to find myself there quite a lot
But it always seems strange seeing some of the show buildings around the main ring looking abandoned almost like a scene from Chenobal !

I agree. It always feels very eerie driving through the site now, like a ghost town even though there are plenty of people going about their business there.

 

[PostHarvest]

I live very close to the site and there is some activity to replace some of the older buildings - not before time IMHO - they were looking very shabby and dated. A good lick of paint would not go amiss on some of the remaining buildings. Several of the breed societies are based there and a number of other agriculture based offices, NFU, LANTRA etc. The dairy unit went long ago with the other livestock demonstration units. They hold quite a number of non-farming exhibitions there like specialist plant (heavy equipment) and "park homes" (fancy caravans and cabins). Last I heard, HS2 is due to run through the northern half of the site.

 

[msheep66]

No, the dairy unit was wound up a few years before the show finished.
IIRC there was a pig unit there too, I presume that finished about the same time.

They also had a poultry unit and a very good sheep unit. I attended the college there in 1984 as part of an offshoot of Morton Morrell agricultural college. It have to say it was one of the most enjoyable times of my life.

 

[Whitepeak]

I go to the showground every few months now for breed council meetings. Still quite a bit going on; atleast 5 beef breed societies are based on the showground, although most are now in the Charolais pavilion. Some of the old pavilions are used by other companies, Holstein is now a successful cafe/farm shop, and one further down the row is a graphics company. But others are very delipdated. As others have said NFU, AHDB and NFYFC have their offices on the showground.
There are several events through the year, in June was a big caravan/summer house exhibition and they have a classic car show plus others.
There is a hotel on site but it's pretty expensive for what it is. And I hope they've pulled down the old blackdown village, it was terrible the last time I stayed in there for the ABAB calf show 4yrs ago!
Went to the beef expo there last year and the old cattle sheds were in ok nick but not great.
Heard the other week that the cattle market is moving off the showground in the next few years.

 

[msheep66]

I believe they are building a new market outside of the show ground so what happens to the site then?

 

[Whitepeak]

I believe they are building a new market outside of the show ground so what happens to the site then?

I've heard they are moving it to a site closer to the A46 I think. By all accounts it should be completed by 2020.

 

[Clive]

It's chicken and egg though isn't it?

The Royal was a good very well attended show. Exhibiting became prohibitively expensive, exhibitors stayed away, attendance dropped, the show closed....It was that way around, not the other. (as is happening at Cereals) Poor management killed it, not industry staying away.

Your point about making a shilling...the RASE is a charity so the shilling was staying in the industry it that instance, unlike Haymarket et al.

Agree it’s chicken and egg

But the complaints about cost are the same as we hear today re lamma and Cereals

It’s mad the royal failed, must have been some serious miss management going on - charity as you say, perfect purpose made location etc

 

[Kevtherev]

@Cab-over Pete

 

[texas pete]

As far as I know RASE does not own Stoneleigh now. Think a big property company have it.
Havn`t a clue if RASE even exists & what its roll is
As someone who remembers the Royal Show in its prime I find it sad to go there & see it looking so run down.
Apart from NFu / AHDB (wonder who`s money build that palace ?) & a few others it`s a shadow of what it used to be.

As the show went downhill I spoke to a number of the "bowler Hats " asking what their plan was. The attitude was "Its the Royal Show, people will always come " - Wrong !

Did the RASE own Stoneleigh before that?

If it did, what happened to the sale proceeds?

Could ask the same question about the proceeds of the "Surplus Collection" although not on the same scale.

http://www.historymatters.group.she...oyal-agricultural-society-england-collection/

 

[PostHarvest]

IIRC there was a pig unit there too, I presume that finished about the same time.

The pig unit closed a long time ago. It must have been in the early 1980's or even late 70's. My dad bought the pen divisions and when I helped him take them out of the building the roof dropped a good couple of inches. We hadn't realised that they were propping the whole thing up. That was before Risk assessments were invented of course.

 

[upnortheast]

Did the RASE own Stoneleigh before that?

If it did, what happened to the sale proceeds?

Yes definatly owned Stoneleigh Park
A seach shows that RASE gave Coutts Bank had a mortgage over Stoneleigh between 2007 - 2015
They sold it circa 2015
I would guess the proceeds went to fill the hole running the Royal Show left them
From memory the last year of the show lost them close to £1m
Chart below from Charity Commision web site gives 5 years summary
Other details on there if anyone needs to know

 

[JP1]

Catastrophic management, out-sourced Show operations to Haymarket, that drove more exhibitors away with the rate hikes

Tragic closure of the NAC units happened some time before

I was involved in building tents on there for years for the Royal, Town and Country Festival and others

To think in 2018 the old cattle sheds are up to scratch for an event like the Pig and Poultry Fair is sad when you compare with Eurotier in Hannover but i bet there is central Government support in the background for that Messe Hall

 

[JP1]

And I spotted some of the Silverware being auctioned to pay off debts (pension rights I recall) by the RASE. The trouble was much of that was not their actual property. I alerted a few who got their Perpetual cups back to respective breed societies

 

[glasshouse]

Many moons ago I was a governor of the RASE,what excellent lunches we had during The Royal Show. What has happened to the show ground I have no idea,are the AHDB located there ?

Perhaps the lunches led to the demise?

 

[glasshouse]

Everything that was good they ban or close.
Central of Country location the lot.
Royal Show Summer.
Smithfield Winter.
Heard Grassland etc.there moving also? is it?
What about Stonleigh Abbey and parks etc.?

I loved the royal, went as often as possible.
Hard to believe they fu.ked it up.

 

[lloyd]

It was far better than the horse and dog show thats in mid wales.

 

[Tarw Coch]

To think in 2018 the old cattle sheds are up to scratch for an event like the Pig and Poultry Fair is sad when you compare with Eurotier in Hannover but i bet there is central Government support in the background for that Messe Hall

Surely the buildings at Stomeleigh are purpose built stock sheds albeit quite dated now.
The exhibition halls at EuroTier are much more comparable with the NEC, EuroTier only being a small part of their use.
Admittedly I’m out on a limb here with my opinion as I haven’t actually been around the pig and poultry sections of EuroTier however to the best of my knowledge there’s no difference to those halls and I’ve almost certainly been in them at Agritechnica.