The Loughborough Canal and Boat Festival is an annual event that is held in Loughborough, England.
The festival was started as part of a campaign by the Loughborough Echo in 1997 to draw attention to redevelopment plans which would have involved the infilling of part of the Canal System. The plans by Charnwood Borough Council were subsequently abandoned. The festival has been held every year since except for 2001 due to foot and mouth.
The festival is centred on a location known as Chain Bridge in Loughborough. This point is the intersection of the Loughborough Navigation, the Leicester Navigation and Loughborough Wharf of the Grand Union Canal.
The fair typically runs for the first weekend in May of each year and attracts boaters from around the country, many arriving a week earlier to secure moorings. During the weekend there are various stalls providing food, drink, music, entertainment and demonstrations. On the Saturday night the boats are illuminated.
The festival is now the largest to be held in the Midlands with approximately 10,000 people attending.
Famous quotes containing the words canal and/or festival:
“My impression about the Panama Canal is that the great revolution it is going to introduce in the trade of the world is in the trade between the east and the west coast of the United States.”
—William Howard Taft (1857–1930)
“Marry, I cannot show it in rhyme, I have tried; I can find no rhyme to “lady” but “baby”Man innocent rhyme; for “scorn,” “horn”Ma hard rhyme; for “school,” “fool”Ma babbling rhyme; very ominous endings. No, I was not born under a rhyming planet, nor I cannot woo in festival terms.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)