Whether you’re looking for locally sourced food, a special gift or unique craft decorations for your home, you’ll be spoiled for choice. Dorchester Food & Gift Fair makes a perfect day out for all the family.
Explore the natural world around you using your senses of touch, taste, hearing and smell as well as sight.
Children’s Book Characters
Take a trail around this lovely village and look into gardens and windows to see what familiar characters may be hiding there. Can you guess who they are? Fun for all ages!
The Dorchester Festival dog show is fun day out for all the family and your dog held in the beautiful grounds of Dorchester Abbey.
Brave volunteers (including many Oxfordshire and village familiar faces!) will abseil down the 100 foot Abbey tower to raise money for the Festival charities – Dorchester Abbey and Sue Ryder, Nettlebed.
Come and cheer them on!
Have a wonderful afternoon with Dorchester experts on hand to help you tick off all the essential things to do in this great village.
Buy a duck to launch down the river from the Hurst Water Meadow to a nail biting finish next to the Abbey. Prizes for the first three ducks home!
Come and enjoy the trendy games cafe experience for free and get all competitive with our classic pub games challenge!
Continuing the annual tradition Dorchester’s a capella group will welcome May in by singing from the Abbey tower and then in the Abbey.
Take part in the hugely popular 5k Fun Run (or walk). Enjoy the amazing scenery of a run through the historic water meadow and alongside the river and raise money for Sue Ryder Nettlebed Hospice by getting sponsorship. Bring the whole family – you can even bring the dog!
Throughout this Science Mad! afternoon there will be lots of science experiments for all ages in the Festival Tent and in the Abbey
Our intrepid Rector walks on custard (not water!).
Join the children of St Birinus Primary school as they recreate the historic Dorchester May Day celebration photo 100 years on.
Always one of the best concerts of the Festival and a real treat for music fans of all ages! Come and hear some of the best music from Oxfordshire’s schools. The students will amaze and delight you with their talent and enthusiasm
A fun family concert for all ages!
In these fantastic 2hr masterclasses with Kev F you will produce your very own comic strip and he will draw a caricature of you for you to take home
This hugely popular all-male a cappella student group from Oxford Universities run fun afternoon workshops for children and adults.
Oxford’s all-male a cappella group and semi-finalists of Britain’s Got Talent showcase their award-winning combination of vibrant vocals, outrageously unprofessional choreography and occasionally intentional comedy!
