New festival celebrates what makes the St Austell area so special

On June 26th, the locals of St Austell will celebrate all the things that make their home so unique with the first Green and Whitegold Festival.

After a difficult year, St Austell is looking to encourage joy and merriment, whilst safely bringing the community back together. The Austell Project have organised a one-day festival which will welcome numerous local producers, craftsmen, performers, and artists to the centre stage. White River Place, St Austell BID, Wheal Martyn, and Cornwall College St Austell have supported the creation of the event and hope to make this an annual occurrence. The Green and Whitegold Festival will be free to attend for both locals and visitors alike.

The Austell Project has been preserving and celebrating the community since 2014 (Image: Archant)

The Austell Project

The festival is part of a wider initiative which aims to reimagine the town as an improved place for people to live, work, and play. This is organised by The Austell Project which is a group of likeminded people and organisations led by St Austell Economic Forum. The project was born in 2014 and much of this has been made possible by the Coastal Communities Fund.

Festival producer, Cat Radford, is so excited to share the project's hard work with the world.

“We can’t wait to be able to bring an array of activities to St Austell, to celebrate what a special place this is – but also to help safely reconnect our community after the challenging months of lockdown. The Green and Whitegold Festival is in essence a celebration of our shared heritage and future – all interwoven into the fabric of St Austell’s sense of place for and with the people of this area. Our team is really excited to help welcome visitors back into town and to offer a vibrant mix of activities and entertainment for everyone to enjoy.”

There will be plenty of hands-on activities for adults and kids alike (Image: Archant)

The Green and Whitegold Festival 2021

This year's festival will be a merger of the Garden Festival and the Whitegold Festival of Clay which were previously held in the town as two separate events. It is so named to celebrate both the strong horticulture connection with the famous sub-tropical gardens close-by (that's the green aspect), and the area's unique China Clay (Whitegold) heritage.

There is a diverse range of events prepared for the day, including hands-on workshops, exhibitions, demonstrations, live music, artwork, and street performers. There will also be plenty of stalls to peruse selling locally made or grown items and produce.

Stalls will be selling locally created wares, some made right in front of you (Image: Archant)

Highlights include:

• The unveiling of the newly completed Whitegold Ceramic art trail, which seeks to transform the town into a public art gallery
• Cornwall College St Austell’s creative course students will be offering live dance and theatre performances in the town centre
• Clayground Collective, a company of creative practitioners who create large-scale clay experiences with the public, will build a Tree of Life out of one tonne of raw clay
• Celebrated artist Rita Floyd, most recently known following her appearance on Channel 4’s Great Pottery Show Down, will be creating her signature ceramic flowers
• Moving street performers Prodigal UPG will be bringing their impressive performance spectacle onto St Austell’s street to entertain and amaze
• The experimental brickworks at Blackpool Pit, Brickfield, will be open for visitors to join a live firing of community made bricks and have a go at the brickmaking process
• The day before the festival (June 25^th) you can book a spot, via the Austell Project website, to join the Brickfield team for a field trip in clay country to take in the unique landscape created by the process of china clay extraction.

The Green and Whitegold Festival will take place on the 26th of June, from 10am - 4pm. You can learn more on The Austell Project website.