We need more gold paint! Village in frenzy ahead of Pippa’s big day
Across the private estate, workmen are fixing walls and painting gates before the wedding of the year
ON THE noticeboard outside St Mark’s Church, in Englefield, there is a rota pinned up asking parishioners to “please sign your name against a date that you can arrange flowers for that Sunday”. In the slot for the weekend of May 20, someone has written “WEDDING”.
Next Saturday, the 12thcentury church will be filled with dozens of expertly sourced and arranged flowers as Pippa Middleton, right, marries
James Matthews in front of members of the Royal family, high society and a fair few celebrities – the groom’s brother appears in the reality television series Made in Chelsea.
A full revamp of the sprawling Berkshire estate on which the church sits has been underway for the past week, rather like the scene in Alice in
Wonderland where the queen’s gardeners manically paint the white roses red.
Everywhere, there are men in overalls up on ladders painting the white soffits on the red-brick cottages lining the route to the main house and the church.
“They’re all being done,” said Mary Johnson, who has lived here for 40 years and plans to stroll up the road next Saturday to see if she can catch a glimpse of the spectacle.
“They’ve been doing a lot of work on the houses and the gates,” said Duncan Highet, who owns a nursery down the road, where the children are creating a “Well done Pippa and James” banner to be strung up in front of the building.
It seems there is no corner of this estate – owned by Richard Benyon, the MP – which is not receiving attention. The grand Victorian gates at the main entrance have been repainted with gold leaf, while the walls on the outskirts of the parkland are slowly being repointed by hand by Barry Kirby and Steve Hodgson. “We’ve been fixing this wall since Monday and we’ve still got about two thirds to go,” said Barry. “It must be about half a mile long. Silly, really, just for an afternoon.”
Nearby, a decorator is repainting the crests on the gates. “They didn’t like the gold on the gate so it’s being repainted,” Barry said. “They wanted it darker.”
But the lengths that the Englefield estate, where Mr Benyon lives with his wife Zoe and their two sons, seems to be going to before the wedding of the Duchess of Cambridge’s sister are not restricted to aesthetics.
One villager, who asked not to be named, said some people have been offered £1,000 for the use of their parking area, which they had been urged not to do because of the security risk. A letter, received on Friday, detailed security plans requiring residents to wear wristbands and carry ID for access. According to ecclesiastical law, parishioners are allowed to attend any wedding in their parish, though given that the Middleton-Matthews may struggle to get their rumoured 130 guests into the tiny church, villagers may be asked to stay away.
Even the vicar has been asked not to
‘They didn’t like the gold on the gate so it’s being repainted. They wanted it darker’
speak to the press. According to his office, the Rev Nick Wynne-Jones has signed a contract not to talk to the media.
A spokesman for the Middleton-Matthews wedding insisted the works in the village were not in aid of the wedding, merely part of a five-year cycle of repairs at the estate. The timing of the maintenance was simply coincidence, she said.
Representatives of the estate did not respond to a request for comment.