Blenheim Palace Hosts All-New Autumnal Family Festival

Celebrate all things autumnal with a fantastic new family festival taking place at Britain’s Greatest Palace next month.

Blenheim Palace’s historic Walled Garden is hosting an Autumn Festival on 24-26 September and 1-3 October featuring delicious seasonally inspired food and drink alongside activities, experiences and fun games for all ages.

Devised by acclaimed creative designer Charlotte Lloyd-Webber, the event is a re-imagining of the traditional Harvest and Michaelmas Festivals, but with a decidedly modern green twist.

There will be artisanal and food markets, workshops* from Sunningwell School of Art, Life@ No 27, Jericho Kitchen, Nourish Yoga, Mum’s the Word, Start to Thrive, free demonstrations from Animal Tea, CAG Oxford, Good Food Oxford, FarmAbility and more, with free talks as well as live entertainments and Apple Day.

Other highlights include the stunning Harvest Feasting tent with autumnal feasting menu and the Blenheim Orange Bar serving the county’s best beverages, together with nature, sculpture and foraging trails.

Enjoy a delicious three-course meal** in the festival tent; bought to you by Oxford Fine Dining who have designed a menu especially for the Blenheim Palace Autumn Festival; featuring squash soup, charred pumpkin and a surprise Dragon Egg’s dessert.

Market traders from across Oxfordshire, and border counties and members of Independent Oxford will meander across the site to form the Michaelmas Market, selling locally produced food and drink, crafts, eco homewares and gifts.

On Saturday, 3rd October they will be joined by a dedicated vegan and eco products market alongside special tasting and demonstrations to celebrate Apple Day, next to the estate’s own orchard of Blenheim orange apple trees.

Younger visitors can join in a series of fun harvest games, the giant haybale pyramid as well as Michaelmas-inspired wacky races and venture into Blenheim’s famous Marlborough Maze, which will become the home of dragons! Enter if you dare…

Other games include coconut boules, pumpkin bowling and potato take-down. There will also be a line-up of Oxford folk acts, family yoga, a best dressed scarecrow competition, home-grown Vegetable competition judged by resident charity FarmAbility in their pumpkin patch, Madame Zucchini the vegetable entertainer, Emma Boor and her Puppet Pedlar from Pegasus Theatre, promenade theatre from What- Not, featuring the Pirates Flotsam and Jetsam recycling plastic on the high seas, and the Legendary Madame Wanda Round – children’s fortune and story teller.

The Big One, a four-mile walk across the estate, will be conducted by BreathingSpace Iconic Walking Events – perfect for working up a feasting appetite!

The new festival, which is free to enter as part of general admission to Blenheim, has been created by CLW Design Studio, a collective of highly specialised artists and designers, who theatrically reimagine live events in some of the country’s most exceptional heritage properties.

“At its heart the festival is concerned with our relationship to the land upon which we depend absolutely, not only to survive but to thrive,” said Charlotte.

“The future demands both our individual and collective imagination to implement new ways that this ‘thriving’ might become a sustainable reality,” she added.

 

 

*Pre booking for workshops advisable

**Pre-booking essential

 

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Issued on behalf of Blenheim Palace. For more information please contact Samantha Vaughan on 07469 129743 or SVaughan@blenheimpalace.com or Niamh O’Sullivan at NO’Sullivan@blenheimpalace.com.

 

About Blenheim Palace 

 

Home to the Dukes of Marlborough since 1705, Blenheim Palace was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1987.

 

Set in over 2,000 acres of ‘Capability’ Brown landscaped parkland and designed by Vanbrugh in the Baroque style, it was financed by Queen Anne, on behalf of a grateful nation, following the first Duke of Marlborough’s triumph over the French in the War of the Spanish Succession.