| Where: | Wirksworth, Derbyshire at St Mary's Church on Church Gate |
| When: | Sunday near 8th September |
| Time: | 3pm |
Church Clipping events are ancient ceremonies where the congregation encircle their church, with origins a little uncertain but probably in luck-bringing for the year ahead; the name comes from an old word meaning “to embrace” and spellings vary. At Wirksworth in Derbyshire the congregation surround their church, holding hands and singing, halfway through the service on a Sunday near September 8th. The clergy lead a procession through the west door followed by the congregation who split depending on which side of the aisle they were seated upon inside the church; the two halves meet and join hands to embrace the church.The Feast of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, to whom the church is dedicated, is celebrated on 8th September, and the Wirksworth Festival takes place around this date with a very full programme of visual and performing arts. It’s been revived for nearly 100 years and is a well established date in the local calendar.
Helpful Hints
In 2025 it should be on Sunday 7th September. (to be confirmed).
Wirksworth is very busy during festival time and some of the regular car parking is taken up by Festival activities so allow yourself plenty of time to park – follow the signs for Festival Parking to the Leisure Centre. Plenty of food and drink are available around town.
The church is open daily for visitors and there’s lots for keen churchcrawlers to view.
Click here for the church website and contacts (it’ll be in the Notices section): http://wirksworthteamministry.co.uk
and here for the Festival : http://www.wirksworthfestival.co.uk
Hello,
I’m a picture researcher working on a new guidebook edition ‘Peak District : Slow Travel’ to be published soon by Bradt Guides, the world’s leading independent travel guide publisher.
I’m contacting you because the author has chosen to feature Wirksworth Clypping the Church in the book, and I wondered if you might be able to help me out with some good images for use in the guidebook (and potentially also for online publicity of the book)?
The guide is aimed at encouraging more tourism to the Peak District region, with a particular focus on engaging more deeply with local heritage, nature, culture and history. We are looking for all kinds of appealing and impactful images to illustrate the book. Where applicable, this could include landscapes, building exteriors and interiors, visitors participating in activities, flora and fauna, street scenes, monuments, shows and festivals, interesting close-up details, aerial shots – really anything with visual appeal that might attract readers to visit. If you have any photos that might be suitable, do please send over the high-resolution files and be sure to include confirmation of the organisation or person to whom the copyright attribution should be credited if used.
In addition to acknowledging the appropriate copyright holder in the book, we would also be happy to send you a complimentary copy of the printed book upon publication by way of thanks should any of your images be selected for inclusion.
If you’d like to know more about Bradt Guides and the Slow Travel series, see https://www.bradtguides.com/product-category/books/slow-travel or feel free to get back to me with any questions.
I would need any image contributions from you ideally within the next couple of weeks, so I hope to hear from you soon.
Best wishes,
Faeze Shad
Picture Editor for Bradt Travel Guides
Thanks Faeze- I’ll email you,
Best wishes,
Averil
Hello,
I am just following up on my below email requesting images for the upcoming Slow Travel guidebook from Bradt Travel Guides.
Since the deadline is approaching, I was wondering if you are in a position to contribute any photos at all? I’d be very grateful if you could let me know either way.
Many thanks in advance,
Faeze Shad
Picture Editor for Bradt Travel Guides
Hi Faeze,
I thought it was strange I hadn’t heard from you- on January 13th I emailed photos over to slowtraveluk@gmail.com which was the address on the original message you sent. Maybe they’ve got into your spam folder? They were sent by my personal Averil Shepherd email adress- check if they’re there and if not I can re-send,
Best wishes,
Averil