"I think I have a traditional tent" was a phrase we had heard many times in our ongoing search to find one of these forgotten venues, but when Ben said those words to us by DM we knew this time was different. Whilst he spoke excellent English it quickly became clear that the terminology used to describe these structures in different parts of the world didn't translate quite so neatly - "It was my grandfathers travelling ballroom" he said as he sent us pictures he had found in the family archive of the last time the tent was assembled - 15 years ago in the yard of a local hauliers - and whilst it was only partially built the unmistakable curves of the roof and the modular iron floor frames were clear; we had found what we were looking for!
As messages flew back and forth his father drew a sketch from memory of the layout and some of the key dimensions (at 18x28m site footprint it was one of the largest we had seen) and revealing a little of the history of the structure; His Grandfather had spent much of his life taking this tent to villages across eastern France and Switzerland but with his passing a decade ago the tent had been put at the back of several barns and not touched since as the passion (and knowledge) for how to use the structure had died with him. Ben had heard stories of his grandfather travelling with the tent but had never seen it up and full; he made us promise that if we bought and refurbished it we had to invite the whole family to its first public event so that they could all celebrate their grandfather's work and the return of their families "Great travelling ballroom". There was just one problem....
Covid lockdowns meant that our normal practice of travelling out to inspect and survey the pieces of tent couldn't take place but we knew from our other trips that once dry rot, rust and mould gets into these structures they quickly disintegrate so waiting 6 months for lockdowns to end could easily mean the loss of another Spiegel Palace to the ravages of nature; so we embraced the technology and asked Ben to go out to the shed's and take as many photographs as he could of what was there. This was to be our first glimpse of the tent that was to become a rollercoaster adventure....
To the inexperienced eye these random piles of wood, strangely shaped metal frames and large panels might look like junk, but after spending 2 years crawling through barns we knew exactly what these random pieces were for - this was unmistakably a fine and mighty Spiegel Palace!