Forget yoga, forget mindfulness, if you want to leave all your cares and worries behind come spend a weekend at the Wealden Literary Festival. Set in a remote rural oasis in deepest Kent it’s almost impossible not to imagine all is right with the world. Chilling and chatting in the beautiful gardens I felt like a pleasantly sozzled Bertie Wooster waiting for Aunt Dahlia to bring out a smashing tea of scones, jam and clotted cream.
Yes, this intimate festival may be a solidly middle-class affair, and yes, should Boden set up a stall I imagine it would do a roaring trade, but hey, wandering the stunning grounds and dipping into the wealth of exceptional author talks is genuinely a wonderful way to spend a weekend.
I’m not exaggerating about the exceptional talks. I went to a fair few of them over the two days and they were all brilliant. As a resolutely touchy-feely type I particularly loved Jay Griffiths’s discussion of her book ‘How Animals Heal Us’, which was full of well researched accounts of – you guessed it – the healing power of animals. But close on her heels came Peter Frankopan’s talk about ‘The Earth Transformed: An Untold Story’, Helen Scales and Helen Czerki’s discussion of their books ‘What the Wild Sea Can Be’ and ‘The Blue Machine’, and Sophy Roberts’ harrowing talk about her book ‘A Training School for Elephants’.
None of these authors pulled any punches about the current state of the world and the utter mess we’ve made of it, not least of the natural world, but somehow being held in the comforting embrace of the glorious Kent countryside allowed their messages to sink in without trauma. It also added power to their calls for action: we really must make profound changes to the way we live if we are to continue as a species…and we urgently need to get on with it. You may call me a dreamer, but perhaps we can stop killing each other and focus on what’s truly important in our world?
This is my second visit to the Wealden Literary Festival and, along with many festivals in these challenging times, it was smaller this time around. And it is very small; I wouldn’t want to hazard a precise guess at numbers, but I imagine they were in the mid hundreds. Notably a fair proportion of attendees were young children – this festival is a heaven for young kids, with loads of activities put on for them including pigment making, tree climbing, fairy adventures, den building and – also good for adults – basket weaving, yoga and outdoor cooking. It was entirely safe for kids to play and wander free range around the grounds, which they did for the whole weekend. No wonder all the yummy daddies and mummies were smiling.
In addition to the buzzing bookshop (a rather important feature at a literary festival), there was also a good smattering of somewhat pricey stalls selling all sorts of quality crafts and other knick-knacks scattered around the garden, plus a decent little bar, and a couple of food (not least homemade cakes) and coffee stalls. Glastonbury it isn’t, but it’s none the worse for that.
A lot of people pitched up with day tickets, but a significant number stayed over in the nicely situated camping area – the surrounding woods are beautiful. Gratifyingly, the showers were reliably hot, without – astonishingly for a festival – any queues whatsoever, and the toilets were as fine as festival toilets ever get, which is admittedly a low bar.
Let’s face it, this is very far from the most high octane of festivals, but in a delightfully peaceful way I had a wonderful and inspiring time over the entire sun-drenched weekend. It all felt very relaxed and easy and replenishing and, well, I loved it. Fingers crossed I’ll be along for the next one.
Published on 23 June 2025 by Neil del Strother
