Furness Tradition’s annual Folk Festival celebrated its 26th year earlier this month.

The event held on July 12 - 14 marked another successful weekend for the festival organisers, with a wide variety of performances throughout the town.

The event offered a blend of free music at the Market Cross, a display of dances, and concert performances at Ulverston’s Coronation Hall.

Among the performers were Newcastle Kingsmen, a rapper sword dance team, who entertained the crowds all day and performed in pubs, complete with their energetic dancing and swords.

The Perree Bane dance group from the Isle of Man also graced the streets with traditional costumes and Manx dances.

Local clog dancers were a hit, alongside the teams from Lancashire’s Eccleston Heritage Clog and Yorkshire’s Pateley Longsword Dancers, each bringing an entirely different take on dancing with swords.

Folk music sessions took place at The King's Head and The Hope and Anchor on both Friday and Saturday.

The Market Cross was a hub of activity, as it hosted not only the opening procession but also numerous free concerts and dance performances throughout the day.

There were a variety of performances on offer at the weekend-long festivalThere were a variety of performances on offer at the weekend-long festival (Image: Furness Tradition Festival)

The main highlight of the festival was the Coronation Hall concert events.

They included Storyfair; featuring stories from Sir John Barrow School pupils who had been working with professional storyteller Dominic Kelly for several weeks.

Three intimate and acoustic concerts filled the day in the Supper Room, showcasing some of the best artists from the folk and traditional music scene, such as Ross Ainslie and Tim Edey, Holly and the Reivers, Jon Doran and the Northern Assembly, The English Fiddle Ensemble, and Jack Rutter.

Scottish piper Ross Ainslie provided a preview of three sets of tunes specially prepared for the Lorient Interceltic Festival.

The festival also hosted two landmark events.

The first, held on Saturday night, was known as 'Big Merry Neet', where a non-stop show mixed concert sets from festival guests, dance displays, and a performance by Tumbling Tom Big Dance Band.

The event ended with a concert featuring the 50-member-strong Joe Broughton’s Royal Birmingham Conservatoire Folk Ensemble.

The festival weekend concluded with the organisers hinting at the 27th festival, set for July 11 - 13 next year.