Our Successful History Festival

Many thanks to everyone who worked so hard to put on the festival and to the enormous crowds who attended. It exceeded our expectations in every way. The rain gods held their breath until we were packing up; the 4 VIP ladies who opened the event were so lovely; the entertainers put on a fastastic show – music, medieval weapons, arrows, pole lathing, shepherds, policemen and more. Everyone said there was a real buzz about the event. The stallholders did brisk business and the WI, unsure if they would use up their 40 cakes, began to panic as they ran low towards the end of the day. It was great to meet all the people who had been emailing me with information, and to meet so many others who had a real interest in the village. We think we had between 500 and 600 people attend. I signed about 80 copies of our book and Ted Cambray’s cinema had a large audience throughout the day watching all the films. The Rescue the Roof team did well too and those family trees had everyone talking. We only wish we hadn’t opened up the Cox family last – it was the biggest and we ended up hanging the end of it from the medieval air holes by wire as it snaked around the barn! We saw a lovely family photo album, solved a few mysteries for people and managed to put a man in touch with the burial site for his family. I know we have a pile of queries to deal with following the event and will get on to them as soon as we can. Please be patient.

We will post photos of the event on this site gradually over the next month. We hope you enjoy them.

We haven’t finished yet, so do keep sending in those family photos/stories/trees. We hope to get them all on our DVD by November.

A massive thank you to everyone for making this project so worthwhile!