9:43am Thursday 9th September 2010
By Chris Koenig
Ahighlight of the Independent Woodstock Literary Festival, which gets under way on Wednesday, will be a talk from Woodstock resident and book editor John Banbury about the history of the Royal Park — which existed for more than 600 years before Queen Anne gave it to John Churchill, first Duke of Marlborough in 1704.
Together with fellow editors Robert Edwards and Elizabeth Poskitt, he has produced a new book called Woodstock and The Royal Park to celebrate the 900th anniversary of the year 1110 when Henry I built the wall around the park.
He will point out at a talk on September 18 that Woodstock has literary associations dating even further back — to the year 881 when the scholar-king, Alfred, is reputed to have written his Philisophical Consolations at Woodstock.
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