Editorial Standards
A statement of how these pages are written, who reviews them, what is meant when the Trust says ‘the Observatory is open,’ and what the Trust holds to and prints alongside.
Informational, not promotional
The pages held at this address are written by the Thornveil Trust to describe a building — the rectory and observatory at Observatory Lane, Thornveil, raised in 1817 and run as a downland country hotel since 1974 — together with the policies of the Trust as keeper. They are not a booking platform, do not accept payment, do not run an account-of-play system, and do not constitute an advertisement of gambling under the Gambling Act 2005 or the Advertising Standards Authority’s CAP Code. Nothing on these pages is offered as inducement, instruction, or recommendation.
Who reads these pages
Each page is read once on draft and once on the final form by the duty observer in office, by one trustee in turn, and (for the responsible-gaming pages and the terms) by the Trust’s standing solicitor at Hethrington & Pendleton of Chichester. Changes that touch on the Observatory are read additionally by all four trustees and recorded in the Trust’s standing register. The pages are reviewed in full each January on the night of the Quadrantid meteor peak.
Where the Trust prints alongside
The Trust holds memberships of the Historic Houses Association (since 1976), the Country House Hotels register (since 1988), and the South Downs National Park advisory body (since 2010, on the National Park’s foundation). The Trust does not hold an Operating Licence under the Gambling Act and has never applied for one; the Observatory is run as a feature of the property and not as a gambling business.
When we have it wrong
If you find an error of fact on these pages, please write to the editorial address above. Corrections are made in the order they are confirmed, and a short standing note is kept on the editorial page each January of any correction made in the year. The Trust does not silently revise dates, names, or attributions; the standing register holds the original, the correction, and the date the correction was made.