Member Article

The Princess Royal receives Yorkshire memento from award-winning artist

A Royal visitor to one of Yorkshire’s most popular boutique hotels has been presented with a special memento of her visit.

HRH, The Princess Royal was guest of honour at a special launch event hosted by charity Racing Welfare and held at the Wensleydale Heifer in West Witton, North Yorkshire.

Racing Welfare, a charity which supports the workforce of British horseracing, held the dinner at the hotel and restaurant to launch its Hill House Appeal, which aims to provide accommodation for young people starting out in their careers within the local racing community.

The site of the current Hill House in Middleham has been purchased by Racing Welfare in a bid to help to address the need for quality, affordable housing for young racing staff in the area.

HRH, The Princess Royal is the President of Racing Welfare and was joined by many of the area’s top racehorse trainers for the dinner. To mark the visit, the hotel’s owners David and Lewis Moss, along with award-winning local artist Lucy Pittaway, presented the Royal guest with a gift of an original painting depicting a Yorkshire view.

Lewis Moss said: “We were absolutely delighted to welcome HRH, The Princess Royal to the Wensleydale Heifer. It was an honour and our team were thrilled to welcome both Her Royal Highness and all of the Racing Welfare guests for this very special event. We were delighted to donate profits from the evening to the very important Hill House Appeal.

“We work closely with the charity and wanted to offer HRH, The Princess Royal a reminder of her visit to the Heifer with a view of Yorkshire which she could take with her.”

The gift was an original painting by Lucy Pittaway, with whom the team at the Heifer has been working closely recently on both a complete refurbishment of its dining room as well as curating a collection of her works to enhance the hotel’s themed boutique bedrooms.

Richmond-based Lucy was recently named as the UK’s Most Popular Selling Artist and has been recognised by the Fine Art Trade Guild, naming her the ‘UK’s Best Up and Coming Artist Of The Year’ in 2016, followed by the accolade of the ‘UK’s Most Popular Selling Published Artist’ award in 2018.

She said: “It was an honour to present my painting as a gift to HRH, The Princess Royal as a memento of her visit to Yorkshire and to the Wensleydale Heifer and at such a wonderful and important event.”

Dawn Goodfellow, Chief Executive of Racing Welfare, said, “We very much appreciate the support of David, Lewis and the whole team at the Wensleydale Heifer in putting on such a fantastic event to launch the Hill House Appeal. The development aims to create a resource that is integral to the local community, in addition to providing young people’s accommodation, and having the support of businesses in the area such as the Wensleydale Heifer gives the project a huge boost.”

The Wensleydale Heifer is a family-run, 5-AA star-rated boutique hotel and restaurant in West Witton, near Leyburn, North Yorkshire.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Neil Shaefer .