Larmer Tree Festival
Date: 18 - 21 July, 2002.
Venue: Larmer Tree Park, Cranborne Chase, near Salisbury, Wiltshire
Description: A charmingly relaxed, (its all that tree hugging in the nearby woods) folky family-friendly festival. The action is in 11 acres of landscaped garden. Oriental buddhist temples, peacocks and Nepalese pagodas add to the relaxation which will be enlivened by over 50 bands on four stages, (headliner Jools Holland and his Rythm and Blues Band on Thursday. Other headliners include Mary Coughlan and Eric Bibb. If you venture off into the nearby woods, don't disturb the woodland stag beetles, they're an endangered species.
Tickets: Jools Holland, (Thursday): £23; Friday: £19; Fri-Sun: £68; Sat or Sun: £29. This popular event is an annual sell-out.
Box Office: Tel. 023 8071 1820.
Further information: Online or telephone 01725 552300
Guildford Live Stoke Park
Date: 19 - 21 July, 2002.
Venue: Stoke Park, near Guildford, Surrey.
Description: A smaller laid back version of the larger more frenetic open air festivals, (this is 'stockbroker country' goddammit) with a broad appeal. Daily capacity is restricted to 15,000. Parents are encouraged by a children's area and everyone enjoys browsing at the 100 or more crafts stalls or spotting new talent from the unknowns on the open stage slot. Headliners include the Pretenders, Jools Holland hotfooting it over from the Larmer Tree Festival, and veteran Rolf Harris, (presumably with his didgeridoo).
Tickets: All weekend: £68. Single evenings from £25. Camping fees extra.
Further information: Online or telephone 01483 454159.
If music be not thy food of love, the Word is King at the Festival at the Edge near Wales in rural Shropshire. This is a creative story telling festival where audience also become entertainers. A multi-cultural literary mix of writers and their readers with a number of authors storytelling and offering advice to the unpublished and unpublishable.
Much Wenlock is an attractive market town famous for its ruined priory, an historic attraction linked to the fair Lady Godiva, whose nude trot through town has passed into the realms of myth and fable. The Norman ruins and later gothic additions of the 13th century date back to 1080. These were turbulent times of border raids and sackings during which the newly conquering Normans sought to impose their will and rule. The Normans had razed Lady Godiva's 10th century work and what we see are the remains of a Cluniac priory built on top by local power baron Roger de Montgomery. Lady Godiva had instigated the rebuilding of a 7th century convent founded by the redoubtable Saint Mildburga which had itself been sacked by Danish vikings on one of their rape, plunder and pillage forways in the late 9th century.
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