The fifth annual Rickmansworth Folk Festival is approaching and will be held on Saturday, July 14. The day is based in the centre of Rickmansworth and at Batchworth Lock.

This year, for the first time, the High Street will be closed for a Morris Display between 11am and 12.15pm. The official opening will, as usual, be outside Watersmeet at 11am and the day will be opened by the Chairman of Batchworth Community Council.

Following the official opening the Morris Sides will move into the High Street and dance for the shoppers before moving to the car park of the Conservative Club and dancing there.

On the meantime, groups of local folk singers will entertain those at Batchworth Lock and in the back garden of the Feathers.

More Folk singers will sing in the carpark of the Conservative Club in Bury Lane in the afternoon whilst the Morris Sides will perform in the back garden of the Feathers in Church Street and then will move on to dance at Batchworth Lock at 3.15pm.

If (as seems unlikely) there is rain then the singers will move inside the Conservative Club and singers at the Lock will move to the Feathers.

Morris Sides are Phoenix Morris from Rickmansworth, Merrydowners Morris from Harrow, Whitethorn Morris from Harrow and OBJ from Bracknell.

Folk Singers are Julian Mount, Flibbertigibbit, Warp & Weft, Jill Waterson, Andy Shaw, Dave Artus, The Pals, Steve McLennon, Jon Bickley, David Gunawardana Craig Joiner, Liz Lawley, Pete Nutkins and Vernon Stanbridge.

Each year the numbers of those attending has grown larger as news of the event has spread.