Dear Friends,

Welcome to April, and we are opening – hoorah! Easter Sunday is our big day, and there are lots of daffodils, with hope in the air for blue skies and lots of sunshine.

On Easter Sunday and Monday we have lots of men in green tights – and women too – as it is our Robin Hood weekend. Longbows and a living history camp. We have some real characters with us this year, and I understand that the group will have over fifty members present, so it should be quite a sight! The Great Hall will be open, and so will the tea room. We have the usual faces amongst the staff, and some new people too, as we take on seasonal staff each year, but many of those return, so we are a happy band.

There is a sense of continuity for us, opening at Easter, and we have looked forward to it for weeks.

There are evening event at the Castle too, and if you would like to see a particular character, just send us an email, and we will try to put together an event for you and others who want to see the same character. We try to make good thing happen here at Tutbury Castle whenever we can.

We are making a change to how we run our weddings here. In fact, it is how it used to be many years ago when I first started at the Castle. From this season  you can bring in your own caterers for your wedding if they have 5-star hygiene certificates and are professionally insured. There are few exceptions if the standards are high. We have our own regular caterers who we can recommend, but some couples like to bring their favourite restaurant chefs in, or prefer street food. We can organise all this, and let’s see how we get on. Lots of weddingsare booked over the summer as you would expect, and I know Christmas at the Castle can be wonderfully romantic, so there is time to book this year with some dates still available.

I will issue another Curator’s Letter later this month for an update as there is so much going on. In the meantime, Happy Easter everybody. Come and see us to share the joy with family and friends.