Time to make festival a success in Walkley

Walkley Festival Launch: St Osbeart the bear sculpture with creator Lizzy Alageswaran (right) and fellow sculptors (ltor) Isaac Cooper and Leo Cumming (both 9) and Evie Gladden-Bennett and Rosa Cumming (both 11)

The festival will open on Walkley Green at 10am on Saturday, running for a fortnight.

This year’s theme is Making in Walkley, and there will be opportunities for visitors to make art, music and poetry.

A picnic is set to be held with the alpacas at Holly Hagg, a community wildlife and food growing project off Rivelin Valley Road. Visitors will be able to take a tour, feed the alpacas, go pond-dipping, spin yarn, make a scarecrow and plant seeds.

There will also be fairs at the Buddhist Centre, the Spiritualist Church and St Bart’s Church, as well as a tea party on Freedom Road.

For music lovers there will be a range of performances at venues throughout the suburb. The Silver Spectrum Wind Band and the Walkley Community Choir will perform at St Mary’s Church.

Poet Fay Musselwhite will be collecting words and ideas from visitors to create a ‘poem for Walkley’ which will be presented later in the festival.

Other activities will include a sale of cookery books and cakes, morris dancing, clog dancing and an art exhibition.

A full events programme is available at local shops, Walkley Library and churches.

Organiser Veronica Hardstaff said: “There’s so much to look at, and do, and hear and get involved with.

“The festival is about celebrating everything local and all its talent, the fantastic community and to encourage people that usually wouldn’t be involved to get stuck in.”