The Traherne Festival

The Traherne Festival is held each summer in Credenhill (5 miles NW of Hereford), and in Hereford. Our most recent festival was held between 1st and 3rd June 2024. We are pleased to be able to make available videos of the Festival sessions presented by Bishop David Thomson, Dr Peter Auger, The Very Rev’d Michael Tavinor, and Daniel T Haase. Videos recorded at the 2023 festival are also available. The speakers were Dr Cassandra Gorman, Prof Helen Wilcox, and Dr Julia Smith.

The 2025 Festival will be held between 7th and 9th June. Beth Dodd, Janet Wootton, Robert Walker and Richard Willmott will be our Saturday speakers, with music from Andrew Howse as we share our supper. On Sunday Bishop David Thomson will preside and preach at our Eucharist at All Saints, followed by a concert of Traherne-related recorded music compered by Ross Rosankiewiz, a lovely lunch from Bill’s Kitchen, our AGM and then Choral Evensong, this year also in All Saints. Our Monday outing will be to the Bromyard area. Please put the date in your diary: booking will open in the New Year.

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The Jeremy Maule lecture

Thomas Traherne, Hereford’s poet priest, was buried on 10 October in 1674 and is celebrated both in the Church of England’s calendar and by the annual Jeremy Maule lecture. The 2024 lecture, marking the 350th anniversary of Traherne’s death, was given to a full hall by the Rt Revd Dr Rowan Williams, the former Archbishop of Canterbury.

A Joint Study Day with the Vaughan Association will be held at Hay Castle on Saturday 6th September. Cassie Gorman and Anne Johnston are already booked as speakers, and more are to be announced.

The 2025 Jeremy Maule Lecture will be given by the Very Revd Dr Jessica Martin, Dean of Chelmsford and a former Fellow in English Literature at Trinity College, Cambridge at 3pm on Saturday 11th October 2025 in the College Hall at Hereford Cathedral. Dr Alister McGrath has agreed to be our Lecturer in 2026.