This year, Chalke Valley History Festival will run from the 26th June to 2nd July at a new site, Church Bottom in Broad Chalke. It is an intimate spot, lying amidst ancient chalk pasture well away from the village and so noise from the festival should not greatly impact villagers.

As the Festival is new to the village, we are keen to cause as little disruption to the village as possible and with this in mind, we are working towards having a traffic management system in place which will help traffic flow smoothly and enter the festival site easily.  We are working closely with Wiltshire Council to achieve this.

The Council have suggested that we apply for a Temporary Traffic Regulation Order, so that GFI Event Services can implement a ‘one way route’ during busy periods, in particular over the weekend.

Our proposed route in for traffic coming into the village from Salisbury is to enter Broad Chalke via Long Bridge, past the school.  We are applying for a oneway road system during that week. Traffic exiting from the school will be directed to leave via Broad Chalke and on The Causeway. Exiting traffic from the Festival site will be directed also via The Causeway. There is no intention to use Knighton Road or Bull Lane and we have been advised to have the road closed to non-residents but obviously residents and friends/family of those residents will have full access.

Throughout the Festival week, there will be AA signs in place giving detailed information so that the system is clear to both village and non-village traffic. All Festival car parking will be in Church Bottom and there will be no parking in Bury Orchard.

With regards our air displays, this year we have another amazing line-up of wonderful historic war birds for the Festival weekend. All flying will take place over agricultural land and in accordance with the guidelines set down by the Civil Aviation Authority. The flight path is not over any houses in Newtown.

Finally, we are offering free weekend entrance tickets for Broad Chalke residents.  If you would like to take this offer up, please call the Box Office on 01722 781133 from 26th April.

Please do also contact us if you have any questions about these plans – you can also leave feedback here.

The Festival Team