King Charles' first official Ascent

The Princess Royal officially conferred city status on Bangor in a special ceremony at Bangor Castle

Many residents, including children from nearby Bangor Central Integrated Primary School and students from Bangor Academy, Bangor Grammar, Glenlola, St Columbanus and SERC, came to the Castle to welcome The Princess and to mark the historic occasion.

 The local Sea Cadets provided a ‘guard of honour’ and representatives from the Coastguard and RNLI also met The Princess Royal.

Bangor’s City Status was granted as part of Queen Elizabeth II’s Platinum Jubilee Celebrations in June. During the ceremony, The Princess unveiled the ‘Letters Patent’, the legal instrument issued by King Charles III to formally confirm the status of ‘City’ to the former town.

She offered her congratulations to Bangor and to all who had contributed to the award of city status. She then met some of the local organisations who had supported the bid, including Bangor Marine, the developers of Queen’s Parade; Open House Festival, who have recently opened a new music venue in Bangor’s former Court House; ; members of the Chamber of Commerce; representatives from local statutory and voluntary agencies and a number of those involved in the flourishing arts and culture scene in Bangor.

Later, The Princess attended a reception in Belfast to mark 50 years since Lady Mary Peter’s iconic Olympic Gold medal win at Munich in 1972.

Anne is Patron of the Mary Peter's Trust which Mary established after achieving her own Olympic dream with the aim of nurturing and supporting young sports people from across Northern Ireland to enable them to attain their individual sporting goals.