Our 2026 programme of talks and readings, walks and field trips…
Online bookings via the button links below are now live. You will also find our festival events on the Wells Maltings booking system under events in October here.
Or please book in person at Wells Maltings Box Office between 10am and 4pm on any day or over the telephone on 01328 710885.
A timetable of the weekend’s events is laid out here
FRIDAY 2 OCTOBER – Talks and readings
All talks and readings take place at Wells Maltings, Wells-next-the-sea
How to see – with Mark Cocker
16.00 – 17.00 – Handa Theatre
Mark Cocker talks to Patrick Barkham about what it means to find wonder in the commonplace and how slow, focused, creative attention to the living natural world bridges a gap between humans and nature to connect us to our selves. Mark and Patrick will look back over Mark’s influential career from biographical, literary and history writing to his award-winning books on birds and nature.
If you buy tickets to both Friday afternoon / evening talks you are also invited to the exhibition-opening drinks upstairs in the Handa Gallery after the second talk.
Fishing, writing and the meaning of life
17.30 – 18.30 – Handa Theatre
Luke Jennings, author of the Killing Eve books and David Profumo – fellow prize-winning author and angler – talk to John Andrews about their books; their love of fishing; the links between landscape and memory, and the Babylonian proverb: “The gods do not deduct from man’s allotted span the hours spent fishing.”
If you buy tickets to both Friday afternoon / evening talks you are also invited to the exhibition-opening drinks upstairs in the Handa Gallery after the second talk.
SATURDAY 3 OCTOBER – Talks and readings
Meet our artists in the gallery – Fred Ingrams, James Cockburn and Paddy Sutton
14.00 – 14.30 – Handa Gallery (upstairs at Wells Maltings)
Fred Ingrams talks about three landscapes he has lived in, worked in and painted for a long time – the Fens (subject of his 2024 book Flat Earth), the North Norfolk Coast and Flow Country – their unique beauty and the encroaching threats he sees there. James Cockburn and Paddy Sutton discuss their approach to place and how the process of choosing, observing, recording and reimagining alters what they see.
Free event – no booking required
The exhibition is open all weekend except during some talks and readings. Please check our timetable page.
Nicholas Crane – interviewed by Patrick Barkham
15.00 -16.00 – Handa Theatre
Nicholas Crane’s 2026 book The Path More Travelled strides along Britain’s uniquely dense network of paths and rights of way in the steps of those who helped to define our experience of the British landscape as we find it now. Patrick Barkham talks to the author, geographer and broadcaster about his intrepid career of exploration, his writing and about growing up in Norfolk.
Alastair Fothergill – filming with David Attenborough
16.30 – 17.30 – Handa Theatre
Alastair Fothergill – natural history producer, author, director, CEO founder of Silverback Films and former head of BBC Bristol’s Natural History unit – shows footage from his forty-year career filming wildlife all over the world, and talks about this award-winning work, much of it involving David Attenborough, who celebrated his 100th birthday in May.
Geoff Dyer – interviewed by Jon Cook
18.00 – 19.00 – Handa Theatre
One of Britain’s best-known writers, Geoff Dyer’s work is as wide-ranging as it is emotionally and intellectually engaging. Jon Cook interviews Geoff about his writing in general, and in particular his memoir Homework – a meticulous, amusing and vivid remembering of childhood in Cheltenham in the 1960s and 70s – a book more deeply attuned than ever to the special atmospheres of time and place.
SUNDAY 4 OCTOBER – Talks and readings
Nature Matters and more – Karen McCarthy Woolf and Mona Arshi
10.00 – 11.00 – Handa Theatre
Poets Karen McCarthy Woolf and Mona Arshi explore the less celebrated corners of the natural world considering how nature matters everywhere for everyone. Expect fresh, diverse and playful perspectives on landscapes and how they are shaped by money and power in this conversation between long-standing friends and literary collaborators – with readings and a film.
NB book both Sunday morning poetry events and get an automatic £5 discount
Daphne Astor: a launch and a celebration
11.30 – 12.30 – Handa Theatre
Join Dame Gillian Beer, Maggi Hambling, Eileen Haring Woods and Matthew Hollis to launch Honour, an entrancing collection of poems by the late Daphne Warburg Astor: American-born artist, farmer, poet, environmentalist, philanthropist, and founder of Poetry in Aldeburgh and Hazel Press. Reflecting on Daphne’s deep consideration of the living world and our relationship with other beings, the panel explores her remarkable work and influence. The event includes a special screening of her film-poem, also called Honour.
NB book both Sunday morning poetry events and get an automatic £5 discount
FRIDAY 2 OCTOBER – Walks and field trips
All our walks and field trips are subject to change if weather conditions are severe. Please make sure we have your email address and contact permissions so we can update you about plans a day or two before the event.
River restoration workshop at Castle Acre – Charles Rangeley-Wilson and David Sear
11.00 – 15.00 Castle Acre
How can you bring a chalk river back to a natural, flourishing form when it has been diverted, dredged, canalised and polluted for centuries? Join us for an illustrated workshop in Castle Acre Village Hall followed by a walk along the Nar where we will see re-meandering works in process as well as thriving stretches of river a few years after restoration.
Reasonable fitness required. Bring a packed lunch. Wear stout shoes for muddy ground and dress for the day’s weather.
SATURDAY 3 OCTOBER – Walks and field trips
Holkham Nature Reserve – a walk through time with Andy Bloomfield
08.00 – 11.00 – The Lookout, Lady Anne’s Drive
A 3-mile stroll along the old railway line from the Lookout in Lady Anne’s Drive to the Iron-Age Fort and back. We will follow the history of the estate’s people and marshes, through floods, wars and pioneering conservation works, exploring how all these affected and continue to affect Holkham’s wildlife. All – potentially – taking place against a soundscape of pink-footed geese in their thousands freshly arrived after migration from Iceland.
3 hours walking over rough ground – good level of fitness demanded. Dress for weather conditions with stout footwear.
Mr & Mrs Temple’s regenerative farm – a walk, talk and tasting
10.00 – 12.00 – Copy’s Green Farm Wighton
90-minute walk followed by 30-minute talk, with tea and cheese tasting
Visit the home of Mrs Temple’s cheeses beside the River Stiffkey to find out how a pair of multi-generational farmers with PhDs in engineering and pharmacy turned a traditional Norfolk family farm into a self-sustaining regenerative enterprise that recycles all its own waste and generates green energy for the local community while at the same time producing award-winning cheeses from a happy herd of Swiss Browns.
Half a mile of walking over rough ground, stopping frequently. Please wear stout shoes and dress for weather conditions. We will encounter farm animals. If weather is an issue, a talk will take place at the farm instead. Tea and talk will be in an upstairs room, so sadly inaccessible to those who have difficulties with stairs.
A century of Norfolk nature – a talk and walk with Nick Acheson
10.00 – 12.30 – NWT Cley and Salthouse Marshes Visitor Centre
One hundred years after the founding of the world’s first wildlife trust, a walk and talk about the Norfolk Wildlife Trust and Cley reserve, the visionary people who created and have sustained it since 1912, its wildlife and its future – with author, naturalist and Norfolk native Nick Acheson. A 60-minute talk followed by a 90-minute walk.
4 miles level walking along hard paths, with stopping and standing. Dress for weather and wear stout shoes. Binoculars helpful but not essential. Cafe open from 10am.
Marsh boat trip with Nick Groom
11.15 – 12.15– East Quay pontoon, Tug Boat Yard, Wells-next-the-sea
Enter another world – a salty landscape where wildlife thrives within the constantly shifting cycle of tides. With Nick Groom as skipper, take a boat safari at high water through a complex maze of creeks and mudbanks to spot birds, amphibious plants and creatures that depend on this alien and inaccessible environment for their survival. Find out the human histories of Wells salt marsh at the same time.
Open dinghy. Dress for full exposure to weather conditions while sitting still. Wheelchairs accommodated.
SUNDAY 4 OCTOBER – walks and field trips
Seeing wildlife – a walk in Holkham Park with Mark Cocker
08.00 – 10.00 – North Gate to Holkham Park
Holkham Park with its wonderful veteran trees, abundance of fungi, plants and woodland birds is the perfect place to see and reflect upon the interconnectedness of Nature. This is a pre-breakfast ramble where the emphasis is on standing still: to savour all the various lives that make this one of Norfolk’s premier places for nature.
Please come well shod and properly clothed just in case. Bring binoculars and hand lenses if you have them.
Beach boat trip with Nick Groom
13.45 – 14.45– East Quay pontoon, Tug Boat Yard, Wells-next-the-sea
End your festival weekend surrounded by nature and wildlife in their element on a boat safari down Wells channel to the beach and back, skippered by Nick Groom. Spot newly arriving winter birds, look back at the land from out on the water and hear about Well’s 700-year-old relationship with the sea.
Open dinghy. Dress for full exposure to weather conditions while sitting still. Wheelchairs accommodated.
Bookings have now opened.
Online bookings via the links above are now live. You can also book via the Wells Maltings events pages here or between 10am and 4pm on any day in person at the Wells Maltings Box Office or over the telephone on 01328 710885.