This year the Festival will be held from 19th July to 3rd August 2025. It promotes involvement in archaeology through flagship days such as “A Day in Archaeology” and “Youth Day” and allows individuals to get involved from wherever they are, all year round, through our wide range of downloadable Festival Resources. Through the Festival, each year we help over half a million people to participate in archaeology, explore stories of place, and connect with the environment around them.
The Festival’s principal funder is Historic England, with additional support provided by Cadw. The Festival is once again supported by Towergate Insurance and the Chartered Institute for Archaeologists (CIfA).
Archaeology and Wellbeing
The theme this year is “Archaeology and Wellbeing”. Archaeology is a wonderful way to make a positive impact on people’s well-being. We will be incorporating the 5 ways to wellbeing into our events and activities, creating opportunities for people to give, be active, learn, take notice and connect.
There are many ways archaeology can benefit your wellbeing from spending some time in nature at an archaeological site, a mindful moment studying an object, participating in a skills day or field school to learn something new, or spending time with other people at events or volunteering with a local group. We're looking forward to hearing what archaeology and wellbeing means to you.
Festival Headline Events
For this year’s Festival launch we’re stepping across the Irish Sea to showcase some of the amazing archaeology and heritage in Northern Ireland. On Saturday 19th July we’re collaborating with our friends at the National Trust for a family fun-day around Divis and the Black Mountain, just outside Belfast. In addition to showcasing the work of local groups and societies, we will have hands-on traditional arts and crafts activities for people to try, storytelling, guided walks, sensory walks, pot making demonstrations, flint knapping, a live excavation and other exciting activities. In fact, we have so much going on that we are spreading ourselves across two sites, the Hannahstown Community Centre and the Black Mountain itself, with a free shuttlebus running between the two to ensure visitors can make the most of everything on offer. For more information, click here.
On Sunday 20th July we are working with the Department for Communities’ Historic Environment Division (HED) to offer a small group of people the chance to try their hand at some traditional skills, including stone carving, lime mortar/pointing and conservation joinery. There will also be a demonstration of blacksmithing. This Heritage Skills Day will be hosted at HED’s Conservation Works Depot in Moira and will be delivered by their trained experts. Places are limited so book soon by following this link.
Our Theme Day on 22nd July centres around our Festival theme of Archaeology and Wellbeing and includes the release of a new suite of Young Archaeologists’ Club resources, an online collections gallery, and interviews with collectors to inspire you. While our youth activity day in collaboration with Chester House Estate will include a range of fun hands-on activities for young people aged 8-16 and takes place on Saturday 26th July.
Digitally we have a range of takeover days reaching a worldwide audience including Ask An Archaeologist Day on X (Twitter), Instagram, Bluesky, and for the first time on Reddit, where archaeologists answer both educational and humorous enquiries - best pet on site anyone? A Day in Archaeology is a blog-based event with submissions from professionals, students and volunteers who share their experiences in archaeology. Finally, we have Youth Day sponsored by the Royal Archaeological Institute which includes the annual Early Careers Conference coordinated by the CIfA Early Career Special Interest Group and the CBA.
We also have two online talks during the Festival linked to wellbeing and archaeology. The lectures form part of the CBA’s free This Is Archaeology series which runs throughout the year.
For our grand finale we are heading to West Yorkshire and joining the Bradford and District City of Culture celebrations at Cliffe Castle in Keighley on the weekend of the 2nd-3rd August. We are collaborating with Bradford District Museums and Galleries to reflect on Bradford’s diverse history and heritage. Our family fun weekend will celebrate multi-cultural traditional arts & crafts, discover ancient crafts, offer opportunities to explore local British and South Asian histories, engage with local heritage societies and even experience the wonder of the almost magical lithophones (musical stones)! With wellbeing walks and sensory explorations of the museum grounds, this event promises to be fantastic fun for all ages and backgrounds.
We’ll also have a Festival competition – look out for details on the Festival website in July and see how you can get involved.
Find out more about our Festival headline events here.
Events and activities across the UK
During Festival fortnight individuals, volunteer groups and organisations deliver a wide range of activities which include family fun days, online conferences, guided walks, site visits, workshops, talks and creative activities. The Avalon marshes are all about Vikings for the Festival with reenactors and activities. On a larger scale the Leicestershire Fieldworkers are an umbrella organisation for lots of groups and individuals with everything from talks and lectures to guided walks, exhibitions and open days. In Wales, Abbey Cwmhir Heritage Trust are excavating as part of their Demystifying an ancient farmstead project. Historic England are holding a Careers in heritage and archaeology for senior schools and college students day, which you can attend in person or online. We even have a brilliant visit to a garden at Fulham Palace who are celebrating our Archaeology and Wellbeing theme. These are just a few of the hundreds of events that will form part of the Festival of Archaeology and new events are added daily to the Festival event listing.
Find out what’s on
We are really looking forward to the Festival this year and hope you will attend an event - it really is a brilliant way to engage in archaeology and heritage. We have lots of events for all ages from guided tours to excavations and lectures around the UK. Please keep checking our website for the latest event details, and whether you’re at home or on holiday we hope you’ll find plenty of events to choose from. To find out what’s on visit the Festival event listings.
Alongside our events, there are plenty of ways for organisers and participants to engage via our Festival website, Facebook, Instagram, X (formerly Twitter) and TikTok – just search for @archaeologyuk or the #FestivalOfArchaeology hashtag and don’t forget to tag us and share your experiences – we’re looking forward to seeing what you get up to!
Organise an event or add a resource
If you would like to organise an event or submit a resource for this year’s Festival we would love to hear from you. To help you plan your event we provide plenty of information in the Organisers Area of the website on topics such as inclusivity, youth engagement, health and safety and insurance as well as marketing and photography. We also have fortnightly “clinics” where organisers can join our Festival Coordinator online to ask questions or network – this instils confidence, helps formulate their Festival event delivery plans and also helps us understand if we are producing guides that have value. Don’t forget to sign up for our fortnightly Festival event organiser newsletter to find out more about the Festival along with ideas and advice to help you from planning right through to evaluation.
Debbie Frearson, Festival of Archaeology Coordinator & Jim Butler, Events Officer
