A Cumbrian festival will return to celebrate its 10th anniversary this month.
The Westmorland Dales Festival will be held in Kirkby Stephen on Saturday July 25 and Sunday July 26.
Preparations are underway for the event, which was created to celebrate the designation of the Westmorland Dales National Park in 2016.
The festival committee is chaired by Vivienne Littlefair.
It will feature free events, activities, artisan markets, exhibitions and entertainment for children and adults.
Highlights will include guided walking tours of Orton and Great Asby, a Cumbria Classic Coach tour of Mallerstang and Ravenstonedale, and a cookery demonstration with Fell Foodie Harrison Ward.
Workshops will cover map-reading and navigation with Walkers are Welcome, alongside the natural life of the Westmorland Dales in Jubilee Park.
Activities will also run at Art in the Mart, Kirkby Stephen East Station and Kirkby Stephen Club.
New developments for the event include the first youth market in Kirkby Stephen, which is being organised by the town’s Scout group.
An Encounter Eden panel discussion, The Changing Hills, will discuss the changing nature of hill farming and the balance between food production and nature.
The discussion will launch a display of farming photographs and household artefacts from the collection of Hilary Wilson.
The panel will be chaired by Emily Norton, of the Climate Change Committee and chair of the AHDB. Panellists will include Westmorland & Lonsdale MP Tim Farron Sir Martin Holdgate, Libby Bateman, Kate Blue and Roger Frankland.
Exhibitors at the event will include Oxford Cotswold archaeologists, who will display finds from the ongoing A66 Northern Trans-Pennine Project.
Sarah Dunning, chair of Westmorland Farmshop & Co, said: ‘The Westmorland Dales Festival is a wonderful concept, created in celebration of the Westmorland Dales’ National Park designation in 2016.
“It’s a celebration of all things that matter in our community – our landscape, our heritage and our people – and is now celebrating its 10th anniversary, each year going from strength to strength.
“We’re all very grateful to those people who have made it happen; the committee under the chair of Vivienne Littlefair and the small businesses, crafters, makers and conservation groups for their contributions and for helping to make the festival what it is.”
