Woodbridge will be alive to the sound of folk music and the clatter of clog dancers, when the town's Third Suffolk Folk Festival hits the streets and open spaces. The event has grown to the point where more than 300 members of 30 Morris dancing and shanty groups will perform.

The accompanying Cherry Tree Inn Beer Festival has also upped the numbers, with more than 20 brewers taking part from eight counties, including one from Cumbria and another from Yorkshire.

The Festivals will take place on Saturday and Sunday 2 and 3 June, and the dancers will perform in The Thoroughfare, on Market Hill, on the Tide Mill Quay and in Elmhurst Park.

One group, Ferrette Morris, will be coming specially from France, and another, Royal Liberty Morris, will arrive by Thames Barge.

On Saturday evening there will be a Ceilidh featuring folk group Mawkin at The Dome, Woodbridge School, with licensed bar, from 8.00 to 11.0pm, adults £6, under 16s £3.

On Sunday, there will be a Folk Concert in Elmhurst Park featuring leading folk performers Andy Smythe, The Folk Collective, Emma Cherry, Cruel Folk, Kundalini Drive and the Simon Hopper Band.

The Beer Festival at the Cherry Tree Inn, 73 Cumberland Street (across the road from Notcutt's Garden Centre) will run from 10.30am to 11.00pm on both Saturday and Sunday , with Morris dancers and the High Water Mark shanty group in attendance . Participating brewers are Mauldons and Batemans (both from Lincolnshire), Oakham of Peterborough, Banks of Wolverhampton, Jennings of Cockermouth, Black Sheep and Timothy Taylor (both from Yorkshire), Wells and Young of Bedford, Fullers of Chiswick, Hall and Woodhouse of Dorset -- and, of course, Suffolk's own Adnams. Hot and cold food will be available from noon onwards each day.

The Folk Festival is organised by Paul Salmon of 'Tradition' magazine, from whom advance tickets for the Ceilidh can be had by sending cheque and stamped/self-addressed envelope to
9 Burwash, Witnesham, Ipswich, IP6 9EL

For more information on the Folk Festival see www.traditionmagazine.com
or call Paul Salmon on 01473 785180

For more information on the Beer Festival, see www.thecherrytreepub.co.uk/
or call 01394 384627

Photographs of Morris dancing on Market Hill, and folk musicians on Ferry Quay, at the 2006 Woodbridge Folk Festival.
Photographs copyright © 2006 John Roberts, Top Floor Studio, Woodbridge.