The new fixture replaces the regular Ascot Racecourse fair, the last of these being held on Sunday September 12 shortly before a scheduled two years of works to rebuild the grandstand starts.
Expect some 40 stallholders at St. Leonard’s Mansion, which has a separate main road entrance from the Legoland theme park.
This is a new role for the mansion, built in 1756 and variously owned by the Duchess of Gloucester, by William Dawson, who in 1813 hired fashionable architect James Wyatt to improve the premises in the latest Gothic style and, in 1932, by Horace Dodge, the US car magnate who rebuilt the place and installed 22 gold-tapped bathrooms.
The mansion was placed at the disposal of Joseph Kennedy, father of JFK, when he was US Ambassador to the UK from 1937 to 1940, and in 1970 became Windsor Safari Park after years as the winter headquarters of Billy Smart’s Circus.
When the safari park went into receivership in 1992 the land and house was bought by the Lego group as the site of the first Legoland park outside Denmark.
The property is ideally suited to its latest incarnation with easy parking and unloading facilities for exhibitors. The fair, which will be AA sign-posted, will take place subsequently on the second Sunday of each month.
Dinah moves into mansion
BERKSHIRE-based Dinah Ives, who operates as Magna Carta Country Fayres, has a new venue from Sunday October 10 – St. Leonard’s Mansion at Legoland, near Windsor.
