Pearly queens and kings, a grand ball and a murder mystery – the 44th Llandrindod Wells Victorian Festival will have it all

The festival will provide a celebration of yesteryear when it begins on Monday, August 18.

Exquisite costumes, grand balls and determined suffragettes will all be seen around the spa town’s streets which are full of Victorian architecture.

The Victorian Festival say the festival which runs from Monday, August 18 to Sunday, August 24, will have something for everyone.

The events will include a Pearly Night at the town’s Royal British Legion club hosted by town crier Janet Swindale on Monday, August 18. It will include games, dancing and a prize for the Pearly Queen and King. Tickets are £15.

Other evening events include the Grand Ball at the Pavilion on Friday, August 22 when only Victorian style ball costumes will do, An Evening with the Leicestershire Dancers on Saturday, August 23 with a theme of fairy folk and woodland creatures inspired by the Victorian fondness for fantasy and costume.

The Great Rock and Roll Swizzle – a murder mystery event by Death on Demand will be held at the Albert Hall on Wednesday August 20 and the Hound of the Baskervilles performed by Don’t Go Into The Cellar Theatre Company will also be at the Albert Hall on Thursday, August 21.

In this original one-man stage adaptation, award-winning actor Jonathan Goodwin plays Sherlock Holmes and a host of other characters. Based on the world-famous novel by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, expect atmospheric drama at its very best with this superb Victorian gothic thriller!

 ‘To Begin With’ performed by Gerald Dickens, great-great-grandson of Charles Dickens, will also be performed at the Albert Hall.

Between 1867 and 1869 Charles Dickens wrote a slim volume intended only for his children: The Life of Our Lord, in which he retold the story of Jesus Christ. Never intended for publication, The Life of Our Lord is said by some to be ‘the Dickens story we were never meant to see.’

To Begin With is a specially commissioned script in which playwright Jeffrey Hatcher imagines how Dickens was inspired to write his little book.

During the days there will be self-drive trips out to The Judges Lodgings in Presteigne to discover the upstairs and downstairs life of judges, servants and felonious guests and to Hergest Croft Gardens in Kington which will include a guided tour and then a hat and parasol competition.

There will also be an afternoon tea dance and an afternoon tea and soiree at the newly opened Chalybeate Tea Rooms in the Rock Park and a fun in the gardens afternoon on Saturday, August 23 on Temple Gardens. Everyone is invited to take along a picnic and enjoy champagne and strawberries, the Suffragettes demonstration and a Glimpse of Victorian Costume through the era.

The National Cycle Museum staff will be offering a guided tour of the museum on Wednesday, August 20 at 11am.

It will be a chance to discover more about the displays of unusual cycles in the museum and to ask questions.

The museum will also be open on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, August 18 to 20 from 10am until 4pm and on Saturday, August 23 from 10am until 2pm. The charity registered museum is the main cycle museum in the United Kingdom and it has been based in the Automobile Palace since 1997.

A series of talks and workshops will also take place during the week including a Posy in a Cup workshop at Jayne’s Flower Studio and Grandmothers Flower Garden Patchwork workshop, the history of the festival talk, Mary Morgan and the Railways of Mid Wales, both talks by David Littler and “How to Dress Well on a Shilling a Week’ by Susan Briscoe.

It will focus on fashion tips and tricks from the mid 1870’s and it will take place on Saturday, August 23 at the Conservative Club.

The week will end with a Chairman’s Get Together on Sunday, August 24 to discuss this year’s festival and pass on ideas for next year and then a Caebach Chapel Open Day Service from 12pm until 5pm. It will be a chance to visit the restored and former independent non-conformist chapel formed in 1715 by Reverend Thomas Jones of Tetbury.

There will be a short re-enactment service at 2.30pm and it will be followed by a chapel tea.

For more information and to book tickets for events. visit www.llandrindod-wells-victorian-festival.org.uk, email tickets.victorianfestival@gmail.com or follow their Facebook page.