Future Events

THE QUENDON WILLIAM WINSTANLEY CHRISTMAS FESTIVAL

This festival (to be held at Quendon Church on 29^th November, 2008) was inspired by Alison Barnes’s biography of the famous Quendon writer and poet William Winstanley (1628-98), entitled “William Winstanley; the Man who Saved Christmas”, which came out last November.

The book shows how William saved our Christmas customs for us after the Puritans had banned them for thirteen years and they had almost died out, describes all the Winstanleys’ own wonderful Yuletide merrymaking at their fine Tudor farmhouse in Quendon called Berries, and proves that the so-called Dickensian ideal English Christmas stems from William and his multitudinous heartwarming Christmas writings.

William was the uncle and best friend of Henry Winstanley of Saffron Walden and Littlebury, the etcher, inventor and architect who built the first Eddystone lighthouse off Plymouth. And Henry and his wife Elizabeth always spent the Christmas holidays at Quendon with William.

The William Winstanley Festival will have numerous stalls in Quendon Church between 11 and 3 on Saturday 29th
November, selling local produce, Christmas gifts, Christmas cards, Christmas decorations, candles, toys, sweets and cakes. There will be games to play and other activities as well. Many of the stalls and activities will have a seventeenth century theme.

In the evening at the Church at 7 o’clock there will be a short talk by Alison Barnes delivered by Carolyn Wingfield, Curator of Saffron Walden Museum, containing much quite new information about Henry and William. There will also be poetry readings, singing and music.

All proceeds from the festival go towards the upkeep of Quendon and Rickling parish churches. William was Churchwarden of Quendon between 1670 and 1698, and dearly loved the church.