Bath Children's Literature Festival announces new partnership with Longleat

Bath Children’s Literature Festival has announced that its 2025 edition will be staged in association with Longleat.

This autumn’s children’s literature festival will run from Friday 26 September to Sunday 5 October, bringing some of the biggest and best loved names in the world of children’s books to a family audience of thousands.

The new collaboration between the UK’s largest stand alone children’s book festival in Bath and Longleat in Wiltshire, one of the first stately homes to open to the public in 1949 and which created the first safari park outside Africa nearly 60 years ago, will provide exciting opportunities and a broader audience for both.

Image: Bath Children's Literature Festival

This year marks the 18th anniversary of Bath Children’s Literature Festival, which was founded in 2007 by John and Gill McLay, who remain artistic directors.

Festival Director John McLay, said: “We’re thrilled to be working with Longleat this year. They are the perfect partner for the Bath Children’s Literature Festival. We both love families, and animals, and history, and we are both committed to entertain and educate young people in a fun way. 

“Books are full of adventures in the imagination – at Longleat those adventures are real! The 2025 Bath Children’s Literature Festival in association with Longleat is shaping up to be another amazing year, and we’ll have plenty of events with animal connections to celebrate this exciting partnership. Look out for news of the line-up in the early summer.”

Scott Ashman, Head of Operations at Longleat, said: “Longleat has been in the same family for 16 generations and we have been providing great days out for families for decades. Both our organisations are focussed on ensuring children and young people enjoy opportunities and have fun while learning at the same time. We are looking forward to working with the festival to inspire children and bring imaginary worlds to life. This is an exciting chapter for us all.”

Members at Longleat and Friends of Bath Festivals will enjoy priority access to festival tickets.

If your children have been inspired by animal stories such as The Tiger Who Came to Tea, You Can’t Take An Elephant on the Bus, Giraffes Can’t Dance or The Lion Inside, they will love the chance to be part of this exciting collaboration and a new chapter in the festival.

Sign up to the Bath Children's Literature Festival newsletter to be the first to hear news of events.

About Bath Children’s Literature Festival

Bath Children’s Literature Festival is part of arts charity Bath Festivals, engaging children and young people with reading, writing, drawing and a love of learning. The 2024 festival saw in excess of 16,000 visitors, as well as 51 schools taking part in the Schools Programme which involved more than 4,000 children from Bath and North East Somerset, Bristol, Gloucestershire, Somerset and Wiltshire. The festival is all about having fun, reading for pleasure, meeting the creators of children’s literary heroes, seeing illustrations come to life and sparking the imagination.

About Longleat

Longleat is owned by the 8^th Marquess of Bath and has been the family seat since the 16^th century. Visitors are invited to step into the Thynn family home where they will find the finest example of Elizabethan architecture; take a walk on the wild side in the first safari park to open outside Africa, as well as enjoying a range of other attractions from Safari Boat to Railway Train and the biggest hedge maze in Britain, to name but a few.

Longleat hosts some of the country’s biggest events, from Icons of the Sky which celebrates hot air balloons and other legendary forms of flight including planes, high energy aerobatics, helicopters and wing walkers, through to a spectacular Festival of Light at Christmas.