Bolsover Castle’s Festival of the Arts

Bolsover Castle’s Festival of the Arts is a celebration of creativity, bringing together local artists, writers, poets and communities at the 17th century Cavendish pleasure palace.

From spoken word stages and art installations to live music and dance demonstrations, there’s a new passion for everyone to discover and treats to take home made by local artisan makers.

This year, we will be working with Arts Derbyshire’s Festivity programme, Old Bolsover Town Council, Rotten Poetry, The Poetry Takeaway and Junction Arts to bring the programme of events and activities together.

Entry to the event will be free for residents of the Bolsover District. A code will be added to this page allowing you to book for free at a later date.

Join us at this year’s festival for A Heritage Portrait of England on Sunday 1st June.

The Poetry Takeaway is taking to the road to create unique, made to order poems, with people of Bolsover. Join us as we celebrate together the everyday in the everyday - where your words come to life and stories are shared. 
 
As part of this project, we are working with Bolsover Junior Church of England School, supporting a year 6 class to craft their poetry skills. Our newly appointed poetry chefs will join The Poetry Takeaway team to create poems for people as part of the live event.

‘A Heritage Portrait of England’ celebrates our everyday heritage. This event is part of a pilot project that will help to shape our ambitions for a national project in 2026-28 and is a collaboration between English Heritage and The Poetry Takeaway.

Poetry Takeaway times: 11:00am-3:00pm. Last orders at 2:30pm