Record breaking family festival at Northamptonshire canalside village

Despite a very soggy start to the weekend, the 10th Stoke Bruerne Family Festival broke all records when the sun finally came out and some village car parks reported being full by lunchtime. Extra children’s facepainters were even called in to cope with high demand for butterflies, spotty dogs and tigers!

Highlight of the festival was a Viking longboat with a dragon’s head billowing coloured smoke arriving in the village along the Grand Union Canal.

Watched by the assembled crowds, the longboat landed a Viking horde on the towpath outside the Canal Museum intent on pillaging. The invaders ordered the lowering of the Union Jack flag, replacing it with their own ‘hrafnsmerki’ or Norse Raven banner.

Rampaging Vikings aside, visitors to the festival were able to enjoy a huge range of attractions including a wealth of live music, theatre, morris dancing, a real ale bar, boat trips, a bustling trade market, lots of exhibitors with everything from live parrots to trans-Atlantic rowing boats and much more.

There were also lots of opportunities to have a go – from making wood whistles, tying rope dragonflies, building canal bridges, creating rag rugs and canal crochet to picking up a paintbrush and doing a bit of ‘Roses & Castles’ traditional canal decoration.

The festival was organised by the Friends of the Canal Museum, a registered charity dedicated to supporting the Canal Museum through volunteer effort and fundraising.

The next event on the horizon organised by the same group is Village at War, a 1940s re-enactment weekend, being held in Stoke Bruerne on Saturday and Sunday September 12 and 13.