THE Duke of Gloucester will be in East Devon next Tuesday to officially open Clinton Devon Estates' new headquarters, the Rolle Estate Office, at Bicton Arena.

THE Duke of Gloucester will be in East Devon next Tuesday to officially open Clinton Devon Estates' new headquarters, the Rolle Estate Office, at Bicton Arena.His Royal Highness will meet the team behind the creation of the award-winning building; including the architects, Exeter-based Lacey Hickie Caley, English Heritage and the estates team who manage 25,000 acres of countryside across North and East Devon. Since opening its 21st century land management centre early last year, Clinton Devon Estates has already won regional and national awards for the design, construction and sustainability of the Rolle Estate Office. The Duke of Gloucester, who has a keen interest in architecture, who was elected a corporate member of the Royal Institute of British Architects in 1972 and he is President of the Society of the Architect-Artists, will see some of the building's "green" features in action.These include the woodchip boiler, which is fuelled by the estate's timber and the passive cooling system, which replaces air conditioning by harnessing night air. He will also learn more about the 20-year restoration programme for the historic Grade I listed parkland, which is home to the Rolle Estate Office. Tree replanting and the replacement of traditional fencing will restore a large part of the Western Outer Park to its former glory - as designed by James Veitch and William Gilpin in the late 18th and early 19th century. Estate director John Varley said; "It is a great honour for us that the Duke of Gloucester has agreed to officially open our headquarters. As a qualified architect, I am sure he will appreciate the building's sympathetic design and environmental credentials, which not only provide us with a purpose-built centre from which to manage our complex countryside business but have also helped us to reduce our carbon footprint by 75 per cent.