Slaithwaite Moonraking Festival will return in 2025 – to celebrate two big birthdays.
Funding has been confirmed for the festival to go ahead on Saturday February 22 as the festival itself celebrates its 40th birthday.
The event will also mark another anniversary – the 100th year of the Carr Lane parade of eight shops in the village centre.
The popular lantern festival goes ahead after a successful funding bid by the festival in partnership with Watershed Workshops to The National Lottery Heritage Fund.
The 2025 Lantern Festival will launch “Shop” an 18-month project that marks the centenary of the Carr Lane shops.
Families will create illuminated willow and paper lanterns inspired by the Carr Lane shops current and past uses in busy lantern making sessions across the February 2025 half-term week.
Themes for lanterns could include shop buildings, old shop signs or items sold in the shops such as fruit and veg, sweets, motor parts, cakes and newspapers.
Slaithwaite Moonraking Festival 2023 by Chris Chinnock
The project will also bring to life memories from 40 years of Moonraking, gathering together and sharing the archive of photographs, videos, memorabilia and stories.
These will inspire celebration events, and the archive will be made accessible to the public later in the year, working in partnership with West Yorkshire Archives.
Over the following year Watershed Workshops, working in partnership with the Moonraking Festival, will delve into the history of the eight shops that were built on Carr Lane in 1925, unearthing stories and memories.
Local groups will research stories and local arts and community groups will bring them to life in creative projects.
The project will include a range of exhibitions, performances, podcasts and events, and an audio trail around the village shops bringing the past to life. The project will end with an exhibition at Colne Valley Museum in Golcar and a community-based celebration event.
The Carr Lane parade of shops is in the centre of the village opposite the canal. They were built in 1925 in an art deco style by entrepreneur John Jagger after the council had demolished previous buildings to widen the road.
The Slaithwaite Moonraking Festival celebrates an eighteenth-century legend where smugglers, caught red handed with their bootleg barrels in the canal outwitted the militia by claiming to be “raking the moon” from the canal.
The festival celebrates the quirky, non-conformist spirit of an area famous for luddites, rebels and strong community spirit.
Festival chair Susanna Meese said: “We’re thrilled to bits that our joint funding bid has been successful and we can celebrate Moonraking’s 40th birthday with the lantern parade that we all know and love.
“But there’s a lot of work needs to be done between now and February, so we’re calling out to Moonraking-lovers to get in touch and see what they can do to help us celebrate 40 in style.
“We’re inviting anyone who thinks they may have some time to help us to come along and join us for a little celebration and a chance to find out what opportunities there are at The Watershed on Bridge Street on Saturday November 16 2pm-4pm.”
For more information and to donate to the festival visit Slaithwaite Moonraking Festival’s website https://www.slaithwaitemoonraking.org.uk/
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