Organisers of this weekend’s Morpeth Northumbrian Gathering, the annual festival of local folk music, dance, craft and culture, this year held from 5 to 7 April, are at last delighted to announce that Saturday morning’s procession of performers will be taking place as usual, weather permitting, with many old friends and some new faces taking part in the parade and the speeches of welcome.
Crowds are invited to gather in the Market Place in front of the historic Town Hall, hub of the festival, to view the arrival of the dance teams, bands, storytellers and other entertainers led by costumed figures recreating the return of Lord Greystoke from the 1388 Battle of Otterburn. To allow the parade to be staged safely, the town-centre road between Chantry Place and Manchester Street will be closed from 10.30 am to 11.45 am with a diversion in place around Dark Lane, Stanley Terrace (past the bus station) and Wellway.
A packed programme for the Morpeth Gathering
The packed programme of around fifty indoor and outdoor events over the three-day festival includes indoor concerts by leading singers and musicians such as the young supergroup Folkestra, respected North East singer Benny Graham and champion Northumbrian piper Andy May, outdoor performances in the park, Market Place and Sanderson Arcade by morris, sword and clog teams, a chance to try out maypole dancing and the ever-popular Punch and Judy shows.
The weekend sees a dialect church service, entertainers at Morpeth Castle for the Landmark Trust’s open days on Saturday and Sunday, and back in the town’s indoor venues family art workshops, library story sessions by Taffy Thomas MBE, have-a-go workshops for clog and historic dancing, tours of the Town Hall’s historic chambers and the Clock Tower as well as some special family events with a focus on Silly Sangs for Bairns and a Storytelling Ceilidh to round off the weekend on Sunday.
Full details are on the Morpeth Northumbrian Gathering website and Facebook page, in leaflets at the Chantry TIC box office and during the Gathering from the Town Hall or on noticeboards around the town.
