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Larmer Tree Festival 2016

Photos of Larmer Tree Festival 2016. The five-day music festival takes place every year in July, at Larmer Tree Gardens, near Tollard Royal on the Wiltshire/Dorset border.

These Victorian pleasure grounds are in Cranborne Chase, an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, and were founded by distinguished archaeologist General Augustus Pitt Rivers. They include Indian pavilions, Roman temples, free-roaming peacocks and macaws (the macaws now don’t fly during the Festival).

The ‘Larmer Tree’, possibly a Wych elm, was an ancient tree on the old boundary between Wiltshire and Dorset.  King John (1167–1216) and his entourage were supposed to have met under its boughs when out hunting.

The first festival was held in 1990, was just one day, featured jazz and blues music and about 200 attendees (the event is now licensed for 5,000).

There won’t be a Larmer Tree Festival in 2017 as the organisers need to take a year off “to fully refresh both creatively and personally”.

Update: Larmer Tree will be back in 2018 – 19th – 22nd July.