Weekend of events to celebrate Old Oswestry Hillfort

Campaign group Hands Off Old Oswestry Hillfort (HOOOH) is this weekend hosting a two-day programme of events celebrating one of Britain’s premier hillforts.

Running today and tomorrow, the Old Oswestry Hug Weekend will include a heritage symposium, evening of music and performance, craft workshops, art installations, and a repeat of last year’s hugely successful Valentine’s Day hillfort hug.

Expanding on its well-received seminar in 2014, HOOOH will be hosting a full day symposium in Oswestry’s Memorial Hall on Saturday 13 February. Invited speakers will explore Old Oswestry’s multi-faceted archaeology and heritage landscape as well as modern-day planning threats to it.

The hillfort hug will take place from 1pm on Valentine’s Day, culminating in a procession along the ramparts with lights and drums. It attracted over 450 people last year and was supported by a national social media campaign, #hugyourheritage, created by the Council of British Archaeology.

The hug weekend is being supported by a number of local artists who are planning an exciting series of exhibitions in 2016 under the banner ‘AHH!! Artists Hugging the Hillfort’.

Members of art groups, Inside Out Art and Borderland Visual Arts, plus other contributors, have created artwork inspired by the iconic Iron Age monument and its landscape.

Until March 2, Oswestry’s Visitor Centre in Church Street will be showing an exhibition of AHH!! work entitled “Views of, and on, Old Oswestry Hillfort”.

Oswestry arts venue, Hermon, will also have a number of AHH!! installations on display during February and will be hosting lantern and drum making workshops ahead of the hug weekend. Manager, Barry Edwards, in collaboration with HOOOH, is organising an evening of ‘hillfort-centric’ music and performance which will take place at Hermon on February 13 from 7.30pm.

A third exhibition will run at Oswestry’s Willow Gallery from April 23 to May 21, incorporating photos and film of this year’s hug and procession of lights and drums.

Campaigner Dr George Nash said: “This is yet again another extremely visual display by the people of Shropshire and the Borderlands showing their support for this iconic monument. Let’s hope Shropshire Council with its new leader can see and hear what the people are saying, which is simply ‘No’ to development.”

HOOOH is leading the fight against the reassignment of the hillfort’s eastern hinterland - and heart of Oswestry’s heritage gateway - for an estate of 117 houses. Despite overwhelming opposition and calls from the highest echelons of British archaeology to reject the development, it was recently approved by Shropshire Council on the SAMDev local plan.