Winchester Cathedral’s hugely-successful flower festival Wild! A Festival of Flowers and Nature is back this autumn. It’s back refreshed, revitalised, and ready to attract an even bigger audience with wider appeal. Wild! Has been rethought to attract not only keen flower-arrangers, but to capitalise on the increasing interest by more people in crafts, in nature, and environmental sustainability.
The Cathedral will be transformed by 15 spectacular large-scale floral/natural material installations. Each installation will tell its own story, while conveying thought-provoking messages about the delicate balance between people and the natural world. The finale as visitors exit the cathedral is the moving Mary Oliver quote “tell me what it is you plan to do with your one wild and precious life”.
To make the most of the 18,000 visitors over 5 days enjoying Wild! inside the cathedral, there will be a new outdoor Home & Garden Festival site adjoining the Wild! festival exit from the cathedral in the Inner Close.
The Home & Garden (H&G) Festival site will be secure, with a pay barrier (open to the general public as well, for a very modest entrance fee), and with a festive atmosphere. There will be an interactive exhibit area led by the Cathedral team, a pitch for local nature charities to show their work, an anticipated flower/garden demonstration area, and outdoor pitches with Hampshire Fare members, selling produce appropriate to the garden/nature theme. The overall event has already landed generous sponsorship from JM Finn, Trethowans, and Hilliers Nurseries, and early sales of Wild! are very good.
As part of this inaugural H&G Festival, there will be a marquee with just 16 exclusive pitches. We are looking for artisan businesses of high quality, with products relevant to the theme, who will intrigue and delight Wild! Visitors and the general public. We want everyone to feel inspired to take a piece of the festival home with them.
The H&G Festival is a pilot event: should it prove popular with exhibitors and the public, it may become an annual or biennial fixture in the Winchester Cathedral calendar.
We are very pleased to announce that applications are now open for one of the marquee spaces. Anticipated demand for the limited number of exhibitor places available is expected to be high, so we encourage you to return your completed Festival application form as soon as possible. The closing date for applications is 2nd June 2026 at 11:59pm.
Please review the General Information and Terms & Conditions documents at the bottom of this page.
