Wath Festival

30/05/2026

Morning folks. Something a little different this morning.

If you are looking for a community event worthy of a visit, Collie Chaos is taking place on Saturday 11th July 2026, in the beautiful surroundings of Wath Hall.

Collie chaos started in 2015 to showcase the amazing rough collie breed and has become one of the best community-based events in the region. This year sees a packed programme which starts at 10.30am.

Various dog shows, with classes open to all breeds, educational bird of prey displays, The Doghouse training and agility arena, Hero Paws, who support retired service dogs and the Wath Morris Minors are just some of the events happening at the event.

Refreshments, including doggie ice-cream, will be available, along with stalls, raffles and tombolas. More will be added to the programme, so check back often. The show is open to all breeds. The Mayor of Rotherham will open the show.

Well organised fundraising events are always deserving of a good attendance, so if you can, go along and show your support, these guys would really appreciate it.

Collie Chaos Wath-upon-Dearne - give their page a follow to keep up to date with everything chaotic!

29/05/2026

Morning everyone. Nice to speak again from a warm Wath Upon Dearne.

The Bar-Steward Sons of Val Doonican headlined the Friday evening at Wath Festival this year.

All that needs to be said is that it was a brilliant concert, and if you managed to speak to the band at any time during the evening, you would have realised they are an affable bunch – you really couldn’t wish to meet anyone as kind as these guys.

Brilliant stuff, no wonder Bella magazine voted the band third in their 1996 “Best band members to meet your gran” award.

In a few weeks the Bar-Stewards will be headlining at their '20th Birthday Big Day out' at the Birdwell venue. An all-day event with a mega line up (including John Otway!), we would wager a guess that this will be Barnsley’s version of Glastonbury 1971! Anyway, more details to be found here.
https://birdwellvenue.com/event/362457-TheBarStewardSonsOfV

Thanks for reading guys. Take care.

22/05/2026

Hello folks hope you are all well on this glorious Friday.

A big thankyou to all who filled out our festival questionnaire.

For those of you who haven’t, or did not know about it, the questionnaire is still available for a while yet (see link below).

The replies you give will be crunched by Fred the Ferret, so you will not only be helping the festival, but keeping Fred off the streets and out of mischief.

All replies are anonymous. Thanks again guys. See you all later.

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScuQs8jZ5gJWLFOzACiE5dU1FzFbXyZdBXeEvR1xEzvOw6OLA/viewform

19/05/2026

🏆 We have winners from our colouring competition! 🏆

🏆Amelia Curwood
🏆Cayden Curwood

Please collect your well-deserved prizes from Wath Library! Congratulations to the winners, your colourings were absolutely amazing!

16/05/2026

Festival round-up – Saturday 2nd May, a beautiful warm day for the community events which started at 10am.

It’s safe to say we had the largest visitor numbers seen for a few years, and they witnessed a brilliant mix of dance, performance and mayhem. Performers from Wath and the surrounding area really are a talented lot.

Starting with both Wath Morris and Wath Morris Minors, the morning continued with excellent performances from Our Lady and St Joseph’s, Wath Victoria and Wath Central schools.

Next up was the traditional maypole dance, followed by Harthill Morris, North Academy of Performing Arts and Frumptarn Guggenband. Frumptarn Guggenband made quite the impression and quickly became a favourite with festival visitors.

The tradition of Tukes will reading and the procession to Wath Parish Church came next, followed by an absolutely packed crowd at the Church, who waited for the annual bread throwing spectacle. How this event remains civilised is a question for the psychologists!

Back down to the square, with performances from North Academy, Cast and Frumptarn Guggenband.

A mention for Lilly and Jess who put on an amazingly mesmerising aerial hoop and silks display. How they defy gravity we will never know.

The festival wound down with great stuff from Sherlock Productions, Markmark Productions, Frumptarn Guggenband and all the Morris teams for one last finale. MarkMark produced a great bit of comedy with a puppet who can’t be mentioned! Brill.

If you visited, we hope you enjoyed it. We really appreciate your continued support for Wath Festival. A massive shout out goes to all the performers, children and teachers who put in the time and effort to be a part of it. Give yourself a gold star.

All what’s left to say is, it will not be long until the 2027 iteration of the festival.

We will be 55 years old next year, so it promises to be the biggest and best yet. Stay tuned for news. Better still, sign up for the (infrequent) newsletter to get all the news first. Cheers for now and take care.

13/05/2026

Good afternoon everyone!

Could we ask all you Wath Festival goers if you would be so kind to fill out this short questionnaire below.

This will help us to shape future festivals!! Thank you, all answers are anonymous!

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScuQs8jZ5gJWLFOzACiE5dU1FzFbXyZdBXeEvR1xEzvOw6OLA/viewform?usp=publish-editor

09/05/2026

Hello everyone really nice to talk to you all.

Can you believe it’s a week since the festival? How did that happen? As the cog’s slow down for another year, let us look back on a great three days of music.

It all kicked off on the Friday evening with a brilliant sold-out show by The Bar-Steward Son’s The Bar-Steward Sons of Val Doonican. All we can say is this concert set the scene for the rest of the weekend. The laughs, antics and musicianship were all top class. Superfans travelled from the Northeast such is the pull of Barnsley’s finest Son’s.

The top-class musicianship carried on all through the weekend with performances from Jack’s Rake and The Hunch who brought the house down at Wath folk club.

Sunday saw a brilliant run of the finest musicians you could ever wish to see. The crowd at the afternoon Ceilidh were treat to the best musicians you could ever witness, and the atmosphere weaved at the Ceildh held for the final two concerts of Sunday.

Troubadour and all-round nice guy Anthony John Clarke was definitely busy, running an afternoon songwriting workshop, then performing in a top-class concert.

The weekend rounded off with the traditional acoustic folk of Jackie Oates and John Spiers. Two exceptional musicians who were well suited to giving a fine ending to three days of concerts.

Thankyou to all the musicians who played at these concerts, and thankyou to all you out there who attended these events. It really is an honour and privilege to meet so many of you at these concerts and chat. We hope to see you all again next year. Thanks again.

More about the Saturday events in the next post. See you all soon

09/05/2026

Thank you to Karen Dore Art & Photography for taking these amazing pictures of our community event on Saturday 2nd May!

Wath Festival is one of those May Day weekends where the whole village just feels alive. Folk music drifting through the streets, Morris dancers moving in and out of the crowds, maypole ribbons catching the spring light — and then there’s the bun-throwing, which is unlike anything else.

The vicar appears in full historical dress to read the will of Thomas Tuke, a local resident whose bequest started it all. He then makes his way up the church tower while, below, the dancing carries on and a basket of bread is winched up outside.

At twelve noon, everything pauses for a moment… and then the buns come flying from above into the crowd below.

It all traces back to the early 19th century, when loaves were distributed to the needy on St Thomas’ Day in December. It’s been moved into May as it’s a better season, and now sits alongside the folk festival, which has been running for over thirty years.