About Swaledale Festival

Swaledale Festival is an annual festival of music and arts based in the three most northerly Yorkshire Dales - Swaledale, Wensleydale and Arkengarthdale - a large rural area of outstanding beauty. Founded in 1972, the Festival begins on the Saturday of the late May Spring Bank Holiday each year and runs for two weeks. Festival venues range from tiny chapels seating fewer than fifty people to halls seating several hundred. Many are charming village churches but there are also heritage sites such as Richmond's Georgian Theatre Royal and Gayle Mill near Hawes. We have recently added Tennants Garden Rooms in Leyburn as a Festival venue - our largest at 600 seats.

The programme includes a core of classical music concerts as well as folk, brass bands, jazz and world music. In addition there is poetry, film, dance, drama, comedy, workshops, masterclasses, exhibitions, children's events, talks and themed guided walks. There are usually a few surprises too (think steam train trips, bat watches, archaeology projects and astronomy sessions!). There is a focus on the extraordinary landscape, the history, the legends and the characters of the northern Dales.