As well as our 2024 lineup of ticketed venue artists, lively dance programme and workshops, we also offered a range of other events to keep Festival-goers entertained:
Qigong with Mark Pogson – Market Square, Saturday and Sunday, 9.30 -10.30, Free
Mark has drawn on many traditions and practices of Qigong to create his own Magpie Qigong style. Feel energised with Chinese health exercises, relax, stretch and flow.
Sunday Festival Church Service – St Laurence’s Church, Sunday, 9.30
A service in our beautiful 13th century village church. All are welcome to join in and to sing with the Somerset Russets.
Guided walks
The walks will involve some stiles and rough paths, and may be unshaded so bring a sun hat and water if it is hot. Free!
Archaeological Walk with Dr Jodie Lewis – Saturday, 14.00 – 16.00
Dr Jodie Lewis is a prehistorian at the University of Bradford who has particular interests in the Neolithic, Mesolithic and Bronze Age. Currently Jodie is running the Priddy Environs Project – the parish contains a wealth of archaeological sites ranging from earlier prehistory to the 20th century, including funerary and ritual sites, settlements, agricultural structures and mining remains. Come and walk with Jodie whilst she talks about what her extensive research tells us about this significant landscape.
Wildlife Walk with Les Cloutman – Sunday, 11.00 – 13.00
A gentle walk from the village green around the environs of the village. Led by a local expert, you will have a wonderful opportunity to look and hear about the wildlife, flowers, landscape and history that makes Priddy and the Mendip such a wonderful ‘Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty’.
Visual Art: Museum of Roadside Magic
New for this year is a visit from Libby Bove’s Museum of Roadside Magic, which will be ramping up on the village green for the duration of the festival. Imagining a world where folk ritual, magical practice and plant knowledge still run rich in our daily lives, this artwork of folk-fiction will take you on a merry journey. From a nebulous past into the present day, discover a lost archive that documents how folk knowledge and magical practice have long been essential factors in the repair and maintenance of vehicles.
Visit the museum which holds an extensive collection of artefacts, costumes and photographs, showing a variety of road-lore practices including Gasket Dancers, Garage Guise Blessers, Diesel Clappers and the mysterious Brydes of Tacho. The Museum is presented to you by an unpredictable and wandering coven consisting of artists, engineers, herbalists, scholars, story-tellers, saltimbanques, charlatans and bards.
Come sing some songs of the road, make a charm for your travels in the coming year, or learn traditional M.O.T. Dancing with one of the many free workshops. Timings and details will be displayed on the information board outside the Museum.
