The Pendle Walking Festival

The first Pendle Walking Festival took place in 2004 and was an immediate success. The second was even better. The third promised to be better still with an even larger programme but the one vagary that no-one can cater for came into play and the Saturday was one of the worst days in Pendle that I can remember – heavy rain accompanied by strong winds – and Sunday was only a little better. 2007 also could have been better and the weather on the Sunday led to a couple of walks being cancelled but nevertheless numbers were 75% up on previous years. In 2008 we extended the Festival from 4 days to 9 - the first four days were glorious with huge numbers attending the walks but unfortunately the weather then started deteriorating - even so walkers numbered nearly 1,400. In 2009 we had mostly good weather and walkers numbered nearly 1,800.

In 2010 the Festival will once again be over 9 days from Saturday 4th September to Sunday 12th September.  Watch this space for news of how the arrangements are progessing!

In addition to this Festival another has been held covering more or less the whole of the South Pennines area for  two or more weeks at the end of September / beginning October. This has gone under various names including the Roses and the South Pennines Festivals. Some of the pictures have also come from walks in these Festivals.

GO HERE for some information, chat and updates on the 2010 programme and HERE for the actual Brochure in pdf format. The link currently is for 2009 but will be changed to 2010 as soon as the programme is available (June?).

GO HERE for some pictures from past Festivals

GO HERE for pictures from the 2007 Festival

GO HERE and HERE for pictures from the 2008 Festival and HERE and HERE for 2009

In 2007 the Mayor - Cllr Allan Buck, a keen walker who led a walk during the Festival - walked the Pendle Way in sections on Tuesdays. There are pictures from these walks HERE

In mid August on a none too brilliant day the Mayor, accompanied by his faithful attendant, and in all his finery, climbed the Three Peaks to publicise the Festival.