All you need to know about this year's Morpeth Fair Day and local history exhibition in the Town Hall

And as well as all the main day of fun on June 11, the Morpeth Fair Day team has organised some attractions for this Saturday (June 10).

Morpeth Antiquarian Society will also be running its first post-pandemic local history exhibition in the Town Hall from 10am to 4pm on both Saturday and Sunday.

A successful funding bid to the North of Tyne Combined Authority has enabled the Fair Day team to run the extended programme and more information – including some timings – has been revealed on social media over the last couple of weeks.

On Saturday, a mini food festival on the Market Place will take place in the morning and afternoon and ‘Brass Does Rock’ near Carlisle Park’s Pavilion will feature Trimdon Brass, Ellington Colliery Brass Band and The Reg Vardy Band, as well as singer Tom Wyllie in the breaks between the bands, from 2pm to 5pm.

The events and activities on Sunday will be opened at 10am by Morpeth Mayor Coun Jade Crawford and county council leader Glen Sanderson in his role as North of Tyne Combined Authority cabinet member for culture.

The children’s fun run starts at 10.15am and the main procession through the town centre begins at about 11.55am at Morpeth Railway Station and will finish on the Stanners.

There will be a stage full of live music and entertainment throughout the day, a funfair, stalls, games, displays, the food court in Oldgate and a range of attractions at High Stanners including a dog event hosted by The Doggy Day Care Centre.

As for park and ride, there will be vintage buses taking people from County Hall to the town’s bus station between 10am and 5pm.

John Beynon, part of the Fair Day committee, said: “We’ve had nothing but positive comments since last year’s Fair Day. I think the fact that it was not held during Covid restrictions made people realise how important the event is to the town.

“We are all looking forward to the weekend, including the extra activities on Saturday. We are also very grateful to the staff at the county council for their excellent support with the arrangements for Fair Day.”

Bristol Street Motors is the key sponsor, Bella Boo’s is sponsoring the live music stage and the fun run, and Tomahawk Steakhouse Morpeth is sponsoring the food court.

For more information about this year’s event, go to the Morpeth Fair Day Facebook page.

The local history exhibition, free admission, will be held in the Corn Exchange (ground floor) of the Town Hall.

As well as a sample of some of the group’s recent exhibition topics featuring images, stories and cuttings concerning notable Morpeth men and women, places and Royal events, the displays will once more highlight the need to restore a local history museum to the town, charting recent efforts to find premises and showing images of some of the many artefacts in the Society’s collections.

There is also the chance to see Lord Collingwood’s bronze bust and displays on the 1950s – the last coronation era – in the Town Hall Butter Market (foyer).

Refreshments are available to buy and there are children’s activities and a book stall. Organisers ask for cash payments (or cheques if you wish to donate generously to the museum fund) as they regret that they do not have a card machine.