The Festival of Village Carols

Saturday 28 November 2026

Grenoside Community Centre, Main St, Grenoside, Sheffield, S35 8PR

9.45am (doors open 9:00am) – 10.30pm (Grand Sing, 7.00pm)

(Please note slight amended timings compared to previous years)

The Festival of Village Carols is a celebration of the exceptional carol singing traditions that flourish in the villages around Sheffield and beyond. Our aim is to help participants learn the vocal and instrumental parts of some of these carols at workshops during the day. They are performed by everyone in the evening at the Grand Sing when there is also the opportunity to hear each of the guest groups perform carols from their own tradition.

Founded by Ian Russell in 1994, the festival reflects Ian's lifelong work on the carol traditions of South Yorkshire, Derbyshire and beyond. Ian's untimely death earlier this year was a huge loss to the carolling community. The 2026 festival will be an opportunity to pay tribute to his remarkable achievements and to honour his legacy, particularly with regard to the history and impact of the festival itself.

Guest Groups

Beeston Methodist Carol Choir from Nottinghamshire
The Foolow Carollers from Derbyshire
The Greyhound Carollers from Ecclesfield, Sheffield

Carolling in Beeston
First formed in the 1870s by members of the Methodist congregation to raise money for a local benevolent society, the Beeston Methodist Carol Choir has a long tradition of singing in the Beeston and Chilwell areas of Nottingham. Originally, carols were sung outside members’ homes during Christmas night, but now singing takes place on Christmas Eve and in some pub sessions earlier in the month.

Carolling in Foolow
The tradition in Foolow developed in the nineteenth century as a house-visiting custom, with sings on Christmas Eve, Christmas afternoon and Christmas evening, although only the last of these has survived in recent years. The Christmas sings were generally accompanied by a solo violin. Foolow has a rich repertoire of carols, including many not recorded elsewhere and several with music by local composers.

Carolling in Ecclesfield
The Ecclesfield tradition shares many carols with those sung in other Sheffield locations, but there are quite a number which are distinctive, sung today only in Ecclesfield (and perhaps also formerly in nearby villages, such as Thorpe Hesley). Carolling at Ecclesfield dates back at least to the early nineteenth century, and over the years has taken place in many pubs around the village, notably at The Black Bull, but in the last few years, the singers have been welcomed at The Greyhound.

Carols for all to sing

The workshops will include such well-known favourites as ‘Back Lane’, ‘Cranbrook’, ‘Hail Smiling Morn’ (Hathersage), ‘Diadem’ and ‘Merry Christmas’. The music for these will be taken from Ian's publications The Sheffield Book of Village Carols and The Derbyshire Book of Village Carols (available to purchase here).

The music of three further carols will be included in the festival programme. One of these, ‘Hark, Hark, the Herald Angels Sing’ by the Walsall organist J. Alcock, comes from The Eyam Book of Eighteenth-Century Carols, edited by Ian Russell, Frazer Jarvis and Sally Drage (which is also available to purchase). The other two are from South Yorkshire - ‘Ring the Bells’ from Thorpe Hesley and ‘Worship’ from Worsborough - and these have been taken from the unpublished volume, The West Riding Book of Village Carols, which Ian had been working on before his death.

Calling instrumentalists!

The Village Carols Festival is a unique opportunity to hear and sing some of the carols as they might have been heard with the instrumental accompaniments of the ‘Big Set’, the carol party who toured Bradfield, Loxley, Worrall and Oughtibridge every Christmas until the Second World War. The accompaniments, together with the ‘symphonies’ between the verses, will be taken from Ian's publication The Sheffield Book of Village Carols, which he transcribed from manuscripts used by the Big Set themselves.

The instrumentalists who take part in the festival are a vital part of the day, bringing this vigorous music to life and contributing to the unique sound of the festival. All acoustic instruments are welcome (including those on the all-important bassline!) and by no means confined to conventional orchestral instruments. We can provide transposed music at no extra charge, if it’s needed. We also offer bursaries to young musicians covering ticket cost, and lunch - please contact us on the email below for further details.

Full details of Village Carols publications and recordings can be found here - https://villagecarols.org.uk/publications