Chadkirk Festival 2014

Today’s Chadkirk Festival was a day with many of the usual ingredients which have made the event so popular, a mix of people and place that makes the Chadkirk Festival special for so many.

There’s an ease of access and well organised parking thanks to the combined effort of local authority and local adventure scouts. Then there’s that tucked away world a few hundred metres down a country lane off the A627: wooded slopes and meadows, walled gardens and ancient chapel.

Within the gardens a feeling of beauty and shared pleasures, as families throng around the flotilla of tented stalls. There’s amazement and delight as people watch with fascination at the birds of prey displays. Other aspects of our relationships with wildlife draw interested crowds at the beekeepers tent, or the barn owl stall.

Plenty of skills on display at the craft stalls selling jewellery, cards…

This year that extra ingredient: almost perfect weather. In the warmth and sunshine people relaxed, ambled around the festival and watched some of the local groups who performed and entertained. There were places to sit in sun or shade, in the gardens, or under trees and picnic and just enjoy.