SINGERS, artists, writers, and performers are converging on Dartmoor this weekend for a festival celebrating everything to do with the National Park. The Dartmoor Tors Festival, which starts tomorrow and runs until |May 4, is laying on talks, walks, performances, exhibitions and workshops at locations all over Dartmoor including Tor Royal near Princetown, Ashburton, Bellever, Hound Tor, Merrivale and Crockern Tor.

Celebrated Dartmoor singer-songwriter Cole Stacey will open the Festival tomorrow at 7.30pm at Ashburton Arts Centre.

Celtic songstress Gwenno, who sings in English, Welsh and Cornish, is the headline act at the same venue on the Saturday night.

There will be talks and conversations at Ashburton Arts Centre with a variety of thinkers including the mythologist Martin Shaw, Dartmoor National Park Authority’s archaeologist Lee Bray, Dartmoor witch Rebecca Beattie, photographer Chris Chapman, archaeologist Alan Endacott, and poet Jane Lovell.

There will be walks all over Dartmoor with different themes, led by many well-known and guides including Emma Cunis, Paul Rendell and Simon Dell. Storytellers Lisa Schneidau and Sara Hurley will tell tales at Wistman’s Wood and Crockern Tor; archaeoastronomer Carolyn Kennett, who specialises in the relationship of ancient sites to the sun, moon and stars, will return with guide Paul Rendell to take people to visit several prehistoric complexes including Shoveldown near Chagford.

There will be a performance poetry walk along the River Dart led by MED Theatre, a dawn chorus walk with ornithologist Tony Whitehead, an exploration of the Merrivale stone rows with shamans and dowsers Peter Knight and Sue Wallace-Knight, and a drawing walk at Bench Tor with artist Kay Pearson.

The festival was set up last year by artist Alex Murdin and writer Sophie Pierce, who wanted to create an event to celebrate and explore Dartmoor’s nature and culture.

It has a new lead partner this year, the Dartmoor Preservation Association, and is supported by the Dartmoor National Park Authority, Ashburton Arts Centre and the Field System Gallery in Ashburton.

The festival will close with a new community pageant and well dressing on Sunday May 3 at 4pm, called Gudula’s Gathering which will bring people together in a procession to St Gudula’s Well in Ashburton led by three River Spirits Dart, Avon and Teign, as well as St Gudula herself, patron saint of the blind.

The idea was to come up with an event celebrating people’s connection to Dartmoor, and which everyone could join in with.

Alex said: ‘We wanted to bring the festival to a joyful and hopeful climax, and started to think about the old traditions which take place at this time of year.

‘May Day is the focus for many ceremonies celebrating the start of summer, including well dressing.

‘Then we remembered St Gudula’s Well.’

Sophie continued: ‘The well is a wonderful part of Ashburton’s history, signifying the importance of water that sustains all living things.

‘We got together with Helen Bruce from the Dartmoor Preservation Association, and events curator Kirsteen McNish to come up with some ideas about how we could create a new ceremony, building on old traditions. Expect flowers, foliage, poetry and pipes.’

The procession starts at 4pm, at Ashburton Arts Centre, and will be free.

People will be encouraged to adorn themselves with greenery and flowers and join the procession.

This year’s festival is extra special as it also marks the 75th anniversary of Dartmoor’s designation as a National Park.

The Park’s Director of Conservation and Communities, Richard Drysdale, will be taking part in a panel discussion at the festival Sunday, at 12:30 at Ashburton Arts Centre, about what can be done to help nature recover on the moor.

He said: ‘It is great to see such a diversity of events in this year’s Dartmoor Tors Festival.

‘The walks, talks, performances and exhibitions provide lots of opportunities for people to celebrate the National Park’s culture, heritage, nature, folklore and traditions.

‘As we mark 75 years of Dartmoor’s designation as a National Park, we hope people feel more inspired to care for and protect this special landscape in years to come and are encouraged to join our own celebrations as the year unfolds.’