2024 Chalke History Festival kicks off in Broad Chalke
Over 55,000 people visited the festival in 2023
Thousands of people are set to visit Broad Chalke in South Wiltshire this week for the Chalke History Festival.
It's run annually since 2011 and offers visitors a unique opportunity to engage with the past.
Over 55-thousand people were welcomed to the festival last year.
Programme Director Laura Bailey told us 2024's festival will hold over 150 talks, discussion panels, quizzes, live podcasts and debates this week.
"History has never been more relevant and present than today," she said.
Laura added: "History helps us to navigate our complex world and we tried to do this by bringing together top historians and thinkers who offer fresh exciting perspectives and approaches to history."
Speakers included the likes of ex-Top Gear presenter James May and comedian Al Murray with talk topics incuding astronomy, elections, archaeology and music.
The festival is keen to make history accessible and engaging and they'll be welcoming over 2,000 school children as part of their Festival for Schools programme, which features talks, living history and performances.
As well as the usual collection of speakers, live music and action performances, 2024 will see some new additions to the festival, which Laura told us more about.
She said: "We've got a young historians day, which is dedicated to the new voices of history, research and writing, or curated by historian and presenter Alice Loxton.
"One of our living history groups the Merrie Noyse will be entertaining us with Tudor music, and you'll also be able to watch an amazing puppetry retelling of Beowulf with Rattlebox Theatre," Laura added.
The festival starts today (24th June) and runs until Sunday 30th June.