Baring Gould Folk Festival

A warm welcome awaits over the weekend of Friday 26th to 28th October 2012 at the Baring-Gould Folk Festival, hosted by Devon’s folk arts charity Wren Music. The intimate and friendly festival, now in its twelfth year, is firmly established in the old market town of Okehampton, nestling on the northern slopes of Dartmoor.

The Festival is inspired by the folk song collecting of Sabine Baring-Gould (1834-1924) - one of the Victorian era's great social historical researchers. He undertook the first serious and sustained attempt to collect the traditional songs of the English peasantry and workers, predominantly in west Devon. The full extent of his research work was only realised in 1992, when his personal manuscripts were discovered at Devon’s Killerton House, and shown to Wren Music's directors. Alongside the 650 Westcountry songs in the manuscripts, a further find of broadside ballads and chapbooks has made the collection even more comprehensive. Wren Music has recently finished digitising the entire collection to provide wide access for academic and casual research.