Lanark gets set for Wallace Weekend

THIS weekend in Lanark it’s time to party like it’s 1297!
Star attraction...Bag RockersStar attraction...Bag Rockers
Star attraction...Bag Rockers

Only in the Royal Burgh could you launch a major, ‘totally new’ celebration based on events in the town over seven centuries ago.

The first Wallace Weekend, this Saturday and Sunday, already looks set to join the Lanimers as a hugely popular annual fixture on the town’s social calendar.

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With a programme put together by several different groups and organisations, the inaugral Braveheart bash is billed as being ‘Fun for all the Family’ and the programme certainly seems to keep that promise.

The timetable for the weekend gets underway at 10am on Saturday, as the Scottish Food and Craft Fair opens at New Lanark. The village is also hosting Corra Linn Art Group’s annual exhibition.

At Lanark’s Tolbooth there’s an exhibition of schools’ Wallace Wanted posters and other Braveheart-related fun, like a chance to have a ‘selfie’ with the Braveheart and wife Marion.

Saturday sees Castlebank Park hold its own ‘mini-festival’, mainly for youngsters, with storytelling in it’s recently-created Fairy Dell, a scavanger hunt and other attractions all afternoon.

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The Memorial Hall is home to an Arts and Crafts Fair with many stalls, exhibitions and performances from 11am to 3pm.

There will be displays and performances by Lanark groups, including the Panto Club, the Celia Orr Dancers, Lanark and Carluke Choral Union, ICE theatre group and Lanark Scottish Country Dance Society.

On Saturday night Music in Lanark’s part in the party swings into action at the Memorial Hall with spirited modern Scottish folk/rock from The Bag Rockers, backed by fellow jock-rockers Reely Jiggered. The headline act was formed by ex-Red Hot Chilli Piper’s guitarist Gregor McPhie, who has recruited two pipers and two dancers to form a new combo which has even had Simon Cowell raving about them.

The show at the ‘Memo’ opens at 7.30pm. and the hall’s box office should still have tickets available at time of going to press.

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On Sunday at New Lanark emotions are sure to be stirred at a concert starting at 3pm featuring Ethan Loch, a blind 10-year old piano protege, playing a new work he specially composed for the Wallace Weekend.