Image by Martin Sanders

The Bolsover Lantern Parade was founded in 1994 within the new Christmas Celebrations arranged by statutory, private and community partners within the town of Bolsover. The event has been held for 23 years to celebrate the winter season. Over the years the Parade has continued to grow and develop and to attract an enormous amount of local support and interest whilst also contributing to the development of tourism and community spirit in the town.

Bolsover Lantern Parade lit up the streets on Saturday 26th November with over 1100 participants carrying lanterns around the town, led by Santa and his sleigh, Bolsover Town Crier David Fish and The Handmade Samba Band. Crowds lined the route to watch, with an estimated audience of over 2000.

The parade, now in its 23rd year, was the finale to a day of activity with Bolsover Christmas Festival offering stalls and entertainment for visitors and residents.

The community lantern-making workshops in the lead-up to the event were well attended, with families making fantastic lanterns of all shapes and sizes including a huge Thunderbird 3, a Chinook helicopter (with dangling action men), the Yellow Submarine, and Dumbo.

The Best Lantern Competition was judged by Cllrs Pat Cooper and Paul Cooper from Old Bolsover Town Council. The winning lantern was the Thunderbird 3 and the three runners up prizes went to the Stag’s Head, Purple Wings (worn carnival style) and Dumbo. Best School prize was awarded to all the participating schools.

Image by Martin Sanders

This year there was a special finale event at Market Place (Cenotaph) featuring a new piece of music composed by Paul Lovatt-Cooper. The performance was a World Premiere of the piece, ‘Valiants Arise’, composed for Junction Arts’ 40^th Anniversary Celebration (JA40) and featured Whitwell Colliery Band and Handmade Samba Band playing together.

Thank you to all those who took part and who made the event a very successful one.

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