A Charming Place: Jane Austen in Bath and the West Country

The CERNE GIANT FESTIVAL was born out of our vibrant May Day tradition, when the Morris Dancers and villagers gather at dawn on the Trendle, the original  site of the village Maypole at the top of the Cerne Giant. Here we salute the sunrise and celebrate the start of summer with a barrel of Beltane Beer.  Begun in 2017,  the Festival has now extended to about 3 weeks. With a theme of ‘Celebrating Humanity in the Landscape’, there will be a huge variety of events including workshops, talks, and walks so that there is something for everyone to explore their own connection with landscape of Dorset and what it means to them. Any profits from the Festival will go towards maintaining the fabric and work of the churches in the participating villages.

Cerne Giant Festival

The 250th anniversary of Jane Austen's birth:  hear about how her relationship with Dorset and Somerset affected her writing

St Mary's Church, Cerne Abbas

2025 events

Thr programme for the 2025 Cerne Giant Festival

This year marks the 250th anniversary of Jane Austen’s birth. We will be celebrating with Cerne’s own literary expert Elizabeth Merry reflecting on Jane’s sojourns in the West Country, from the opulence of Bath to the rural charms of Lyme Regis. Austen’s final book Persuasion takes place in Lyme.Elizabeth Merry has been a co-lecturer on European study tours to Rome (Renaissance and Classical); Aachen and Cologne (History, Art and Music) and Brittany and the Dordogne (Palaeolithic and Neolithic culture and art). She has also lectured on study weekends in the UK on Jane Austen (based in Bath and Winchester); the Brontës (based in and around Haworth), Thomas Hardy (based in Dorchester) and Shakespeare (based in Stratford-upon-Avon), as well as being the guest lecturer on a recent literary tour of the West Country. Elizabeth has toured Australia and New Zealand as a lecturer, and has twice returned to Australia for further lecture tours. She has also lectured in France, Germany, Spain and Belgium, Malta and Holland .£7 including wine or soft drink Doors open at 7pm.

Our {communityGuidelinesLink} describe the sort of content we prohibit on Eventbrite. If you suspect an event may be in violation, you can report it to us so we can investigate.

To report other categories of prohibited or illegal content, submit {link}