Hay Castle Events

Too many lettuces, not enough courgettes? Bring along spare seedlings, plants, seeds for planting now and cuttings - take away other peoples extras! Nothing to spare? Please still come. We will have free seeds and children’s activities while we celebrate the launch or our ‘Let’s Get Growing’ project kindly supported by The National Lottery Fund Wales. For further information please contact tim@clan-cic.org

In this workshop you will learn how to create flower templates, how to combine paper cutting and wire work techniques to create 3D plants and how to paint your sculptures using watercolours. You will be able to have a go at making your own paper flower from reclaimed papers, using the tools and templates provided.

You can find out more about Kate on her website

All materials provided

Join the Solstice Collective for two sets of summer lunchtime concert music, including Frank Bridge’s Wind Quartet, a unique Jazz Suite and repertoire by Jean Francaix. Also featuring some of the groups self-composed improvisations telling the story of a summer day by the sea.

There is no write way to right. Talk writing with bestselling author Jasper Fforde. Irrespective of your genre or style there are broad conventions we can all listen to in order to make your writing engaging and publishable. A unique opportunity to learn and be inspired.

Come and find out what can help you with your writing in an informal chat-led workshop with Jasper who will introduce you to some tips that helped him with his writing and some ideas that he has picked up over the last 25 years of creating novels.

There will be breaks for tea/coffee and an hour for lunch. Please feel free to bring a packed lunch or you can order lunch from the café downstairs. Once booked we will get in touch to see if you would like to order lunch.

What to bring: Ideas, problems, thoughts, paper, pens, other writing devices.

PAY WHAT YOU CAN

We would like our events to be as accessible as possible while also making sure that we cover costs and are starting to introduce 'pay what you can' tickets.

We have tickets available at £75 (reduced rate), £100 (actual cost), and £125 (pay it forward).

Consider contributing more on the scale if you:have the ability to comfortably meet all of your basic needs

• have investments, retirement accounts, or inherited money
• travel recreationally
• own the home you live in
• have a relatively high degree of earning power due to level of education (or gender and racial privilege, class background, etc.)

Consider contributing less on the scale if you:

• have difficulty covering basic expenses
• are supporting children or have other dependents
• are an elder with limited financial support
• have unstable housing and/or limited access to reliable transportation

If you select an amount at the higher end of the scale, you will make possible future events and activities and support our volunteers who are generously contributing time. Thank you!

Printmaker Sarah Kirby will be demonstrating simple print techniques using our 1853 Columbian Press.

Come along and have a go - you can even take away a print on the day.

This will take place surrounded by Sarah's beautiful prints which are featured in our Printmaker in Focus exhibition on the first floor.

Join bestselling author Barbara Erskine - The Lady of Hay - to learn about researching a historical novel in our one day writing workshop.

There is much fascination and surprise to be found in historical research. Whether you are an established writer of historical fiction, a beginner or just a lover of history, the subject is addictive and rewarding.

Barbara will share her own experiences of what she has learned and failed to learn over her years of writing history-based novels and encourage an informal discussion about the intricacies and pitfalls involved; the excitement and danger of diving down rabbit holes; the best ways of channelling a passion for meeting the real or imagined inhabitants of the past: when to take short cuts and when that can spell disaster; how to pull up messages from hoofbeats and gas lamps and stones; the fine line between fiction and biography ; whether it’s better to use books or on-line sources and much more.

And maybe there will be talk of ghosts . . .

PAY WHAT YOU CAN

We would like our events to be as accessible as possible while also making sure that we cover costs and are starting to introduce 'pay what you can' tickets.

We have tickets available at £75 (reduced rate), £100 (actual cost), and £125 (pay it forward).

Consider contributing more on the scale if you:have the ability to comfortably meet all of your basic needs

• have investments, retirement accounts, or inherited money
• travel recreationally
• own the home you live in
• have a relatively high degree of earning power due to level of education (or gender and racial privilege, class background, etc.)

Consider contributing less on the scale if you:

• have difficulty covering basic expenses
• are supporting children or have other dependents
• are an elder with limited financial support
• have unstable housing and/or limited access to reliable transportation

If you select an amount at the higher end of the scale, you will make possible future events and activities and support our volunteers who are generously contributing time. Thank you!

In this workshop you will have the opportunity to learn how to do the following:

Form a range of hand embroidery stitches

Apply fabrics together using fusible webbing

Attach beads and sequins in embroidery

Make simple cords and tassels

Stitch shisha (traditional Indian mirror-work)

Attendees will need basic sewing skills and embroidery kit with needles etc. Sequins, mirrors and other materials will be provided.

Come and make a foraging basket which you can use to collect fruit, vegetables or flowers.

This workshop runs all day with breaks for tea and coffee and lunch.
Please feel free to bring a packed lunch or have lunch in our cafe.

All materials provided.

Trespassing onto a stage near you…

A baby cries in a bin at night - as a Faceless Man carves land for profit; a tall tower rises - as the World Tree shakes; and the fate of the earth hangs upon a single silken spider's thread.

Binderella is a tale for our times, the wild birth-myth of an Anti-Goddess who challenges the forces of greed and despair that seek to steal our future from us. This anarchistic wonder story peeks through the cracks in our society, fusing an environmental rallying cry with an uplifting call for compassion and courage in this age of crisis.

In this debut performance The Ragged Storytelling Collective; Kestrel, Heulwen and Hazel, weave their unique patchwork vision, stitching the raw energy of punk storytelling with a haunting thread of Welsh folk melody and song in this fiercely modern epic.

Originally developed through Beyond the Border Storytelling Festival's New Voices scheme in 2021 and made possible through investment from Arts Council Wales National lottery Funding. With creative support from internationally acclaimed storyteller Daniel Morden, and leading Welsh folk musician Oliver Wilson-Dickson, this show will leave you spellbound.

Kestrel is a dynamic and passionate performer with a unique vision. Binderella is a compelling mash-up of memoir, myth and the Matrix. A must-see! -Daniel Morden

“A back-alley fairytale, scavenged, upcycled and retold!”

“I defy anyone not to enjoy this show!”

-1 hour 30 minutes Storytelling and Music

This production is produced with the help of the Arts Council and NightOut.

Barbara Erskine is the author of sixteen bestselling novels and three collections of short stories that demonstrate her interest in both history and the supernatural. Lady of Hay, her first novel, has sold millions of copies worldwide.

Her forthcoming novel The Story Spinner is a time-slip set in the heart of the Welsh countryside. The reader meets poet and would-be novelist Cadi Jones as she researches her latest project – the story of a Welsh queen who has been lost to the pages of time. As Cadi writes, she stumbles across an undiscovered chapter of history. This takes the reader to Roman Britain, Arthur’s Legend and even the Holy Grail as Cadi finds herself fighting for everything she holds dear, even her own life. The novel will be released on 1^st August 2024.

Barbara will be in conversation with Mari Fforde, Learning and Activities Manager at Hay Castle.

This event will give exclusive early insight into Barbara's next novel - The Story Spinner

Following writer and photographer Phil Cope's last packed-out visit to Hay with his illustrated introduction to the living wells of Wales, he is now returning to introduce his latest wellspring publication, The Oldest Music / Y Gerddoriaeth Hynaf / An Ceoil is Sine.

This book celebrates the poetry inspired by Welsh and Irish sacrecd spring and holy well sites, and their often incredible tales. The poems in The Oldest Music range between our earliest-known works by Gwynfardd Brycheiniog [born c.1170], Lewys Glyn Cothi [c.1420-90] and Ieuan ap Rhydderch [c.1430-1470], as well as contemporary responses by Angela Graham, Tony Curtis, Seamus Heaney, Dafydd Williams, Cathal Searcaigh, Julian Cason, WB Yeats, Phil Carradice and Phil Cope, himself.

"Poetry is one of the most powerful tools we have for the expression of our feelings. and the wellsprings of both Ireland and Wales have from earliest times inspired, confused and angered our writers".
(from the book's Introduction)

Phil Cope's "evocative photographs of wells in Wexford and Pembrokeshire are little works of art in themselves / the sort of beautiful object you might well turn into an offering, a gift of thanks for helping you see things better, to understand the world a little more clearly".
(from Jon Gower's Western Mail review)


The Oldest Music is the first in a series of five small trilingual volumes linking Wales with Ireland through the responses of our painters, printer-makers, story-tellers, poets and photographers (as part of the Ancient Connections Project). It is published in Wales by Parthian.

The Three Inch Fools present an essential guide on how to keep your head in the Tudor Court. Unexpectedly thrust into the limelight, young Henry navigates the ups and downs of courtly life, and all whilst fighting the French (again) and re-writing religion. The Fools hit the road with this brand new comedy - a mad-capped take on Britain’s most epic monarch, and those infamous wives.

On Sunday 1st September, join us at Hay Castle in Hay-on-Wye. Bring your own cushions, and camping-chairs and join us on our outdoor adventure. Come prepared for the weather - the performance will continue come rain come shine!

This performance is an outdoor performance. We recommend that you bring blankets/chairs/cushions etc. to sit on. Come prepared for the weather with warm coats and waterproofs etc, as the performance will continue come rain come shine! We ask that you don’t bring umbrellas as these can obscure the view for other people in the audience. 7pm start time, picnics welcome from 6pm. The performance will last approximately 100 minutes (+ a 20 minute interval).

We recommend booking tickets for this performance online in advance. For further information about this performance please email boxoffice@threeinchfools.com.

Sunday Times bestselling author Anne O'Brien was born in West Yorkshire. After a BA Honours degree in History at Manchester University and a Master's in Education at Hull, she lived in East Yorkshire as a teacher of history. Today she has sold over a million copies of her books in the UK and internationally. She lives with her husband in an eighteenth-century timber-framed cottage in the depths of the Welsh Marches in Herefordshire. The area provides endless inspiration for her novels about the forgotten women of medieval history.

Why write about medieval women? What is so special about Joan de Geneville?

Medieval women are for the most part invisible other than as wives, sisters and daughters of the men who rode out to war and manipulated power in their own interests. History was invariably written by men who had little interest in the role of women. But surely some of them, intelligent, well-informed and generally clever women, were involved and played a major role in their family history, and even in royal Court intrigue. These are the jewels of history waiting to be discovered and used in historical fiction. They deserve to be brought onto centre stage.

Why Joan de Geneville? The Mortimer family dominated the Welsh Marches in the Middle Ages, with their widespread ambitions, the often tragic consequences of their political choices, and their important marriage alliances. Joan de Geneville was the wealthy heiress wife of the notorious Roger Mortimer, 1st Earl of March. A woman of courage, of resilience, she was also a woman imprisoned and betrayed. Could she survive the taint of treachery, for herself and for her children? A Court of Betrayal is her story.

Hay Castle and its mansion have bee in the town for nearly 1000 years. What do we know about the people who lived there? Peter Ford will explore some of the following inhabitants:

• The Norman baron.
• The lady who entertained the Duke of Beaufort.
• The Sheriff of Breconshire who sold the castle to his son for £5.
• The mercer whose descendants were all called Richard or Henry.
• The vicar who turned down promotion to continue to stay in the castle.
• The dowager lady whose granddaughter lived to be 111 years old.
• The fisherman.
• The fairground operator.