King Richard puts Leicester on tourist map

It’s probably the world’s most famous car park. Hidden beneath the site for 527 years was the final resting place of a medieval king.

The hunt for the remains of Richard III, the one with the most famous royal disfigurement, and the last British monarch to die in battle, was inspired by researcher Philippa Langley’s relentless belief in her instinct.

Without it a mystery would have endured and Richard would not be having a ceremonial interment on March 26 that he was denied on his death at the nearby battle of Bosworth in 1485.

And Leicester would be minus a very impressive tourist destination.

Langley, a former advertising executive, got wrapped up in Richard III in 1992 when she fell ill and read about him when she flew abroad to convalesce. A dozen years later, she visited the long-lost site of Greyfriars monastery, where it was believed by some historians that Richard might be buried.

She was getting nowhere until she noticed a private car park and had “an overwhelming urge” to inspect it.

“I can’t explain it to this day,” she says. “On the second bay there, I just felt I was walking on his grave.”

A year later, she went back and noticed somebody had painted an “R” on the bay. It meant “Reserved” but she took it to be of far greater symbolism.

It would take another eight years of dogged argument and cajoling before any ground could be broken. And only then after Langley’s dig team raised $75,000 for a two week excavation.

The historic find would bring answers using the latest DNA technology and genetics.

And still more questions.

It WAS Richard. The skeleton, bent and twisted, exploded the Shakespearean myth that he had a hunchback. He actually suffered scoliosis of the spine, which would have made one of his shoulders slightly higher than the other.

But this latter day Game of Thrones has now questioned the line of royal succession.

Professor of English Local History, Kevin Schurer, says study of the female line, made possible by the extensive DNA probe of Richard’s remains, suggest some infidelity and illegitimacy, casting doubt on the Tudors’ claim to the throne and latter monarchs’ legitimacy.

That is just part of an intriguing tale told by the RIII centre in Leicester and its companion site, the Bosworth battlefield centre, 20 minutes’ drive away.

The building, extended over the grave site, is across the road from the cathedral where Richard will be laid to rest with more ceremony, pomp and perhaps care than in 1485.

You can walk over much of the dig site, on reinforced glass. But not over the grave itself, respectfully protected with tall glass panels. But the shape and arrangement of how the skeleton was found is picked out in a light outline.

The facility weaves a tale of dynasty, death and discovery. It takes no dogmatic view on Richard or his alleged indiscretions, such as suggestions he killed the Princes in the Tower and even his first wife. Rather it spells out what is known and lets you decide.

It tells of how the Wars of the Roses between Lancastrians and Yorkists divided the realm and family loyalties over decades before the Bosworth endgame which cost Richard and scores of his nobles their lives, while victory made Henry VII the first Tudor monarch.

Richard’s interment service will led by the Archbishop of Canterbury, yet it was not until the reign of Henry VIII, that a Church of England came about when Henry’s desire to divorce first wife Katherine and marry Anne Boleyn brought about the split with Rome.

Fastforward to 2013 and a second “War of the Roses” broke out between Leicester and York over where Richard’s remains should rest. As a duke of York, the latter’s case was strong. But the courts decided the city of his original interment should be honoured.

I found Discovery to be the most interesting part of the RIII experience. It had long been thought Richard was buried in the choir of Greyfriars church, but nobody could work out quite where, as the site had been a school for years. The buildings had, luckily for the dig team, been arranged such that the grave site had not been damaged under foundations.

They dug three trenches and it was the third that saw history unfold, a femur being the first bone found. Later came the positive identification of Richard using mitochondrial DNA and the help of his living descendants; then the much photographed facial reconstruction and the evidence of spinal scoliosis.

RIII is putting Leicester on the tourist map. The city has undergone a multi-million dollar renovation in a bid to lure visitors who veer little from traditional attractions such as London and Windsor. Yet Leicester is only 50 minutes by car from Shakespeare’s Stratford-upon-Avon. You could easily take in both with an overnight stay and a rental car.

But if you do drive, just remember a certain city car park is no longer open to the public.

IF YOU GO:

Richard III visitor centre: kriii.com. Tickets: Adult (16+ Years) 7.95;Child (Under) 4.75; Family (2 adults and 2 children) 21.50Senior Citizen, Student 7.00.

Rail: thetrainline.com for advance prices at big discounts.

FACTS:

RIII moneyspinner Richard III will be more of a moneyspinner for Leicestershire than Robin Hood is for Nottingham by 2020, say tourism bosses, with the trade worth 1.6 billion.

More than 30,000 people have visited Leicesters Richard III visitor centre since it opened last July, and 100,000 are expected by the end of its first year.

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Email the Travel Weekly team at traveldesk@travelweekly.com.au

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