We had a little (!) rain this morning but it’s stopped now and the sun’s out. Everyone is setting up ready to greet you – and the parade is laid at ready to go as well. We can’t wait to see you for our first carnival in six years!
Category Archives: Blog
Are you going to enter our dog show?
For the 2024 Carnival we’re once again running a dog show, in conjunction with A1 Family Dog Training and Sevenoaks Animal Feeds. Starting at 3:45 in the Arena, make sure you register in advance at the committee tent to reserve your spot!
There will be five categories:
- Waggiest tail
- Best trick
- Dog most like its owner
- Best young handler – 14 and under
- Best in show
As well as these, there will be fun obstacle course for any dog who wishes to enter!
Calling all floats
For the fist time in six years we’re going to have a parade through the village before we finish on the Carnival Field. In the past we’ve had some amazing entries to the parade, from Thunderbird 2 to the Seven Dwarves; from the Red Barrows to the Dancing Pantomime Dames. What are you going to do this year?
Contact floats@knockholtcarnival.org.uk for a booking form and start planning!
Carnival 2024: Our Beautiful World
After the last few years, we really appreciate the world in which we live all the more. During lockdowns and travel restrictions we were blessed to be located in such an amazing countryside and surrounded by wildlife. Because of this, our next Carnival will be celebrating Our Beautiful World!
Carnival 2024 will be held on 6 July 2024 – make sure you’ve marked your diaries!
Announcing our dog show categories
We are delighted to be able to host a dog show at this year’s Summer Fayre, hosted by Waggie Tails and Wet Noses and supported by Sevenoaks Animal Feeds. You can register on the day but feel free to pre-register on our Facebook page!
The categories for the competition are …
- Obstacle course
- Waggiest tail
- Best trick
- Dog most like its owner
- Best young handler – 14 and under
- Best in show
The dog show will be at 3:15pm in the main arena, so even if you’re not entering come and see who has!
All the fun of the fayre
It has been a difficult couple of years for everyone – especially for the hospitality industries, who have either been banned from opening or have had to work around many new restrictions. Large events have been badly affected!
We had originally planned a Carnival in summer 2020, and our stall holders and float builders and programme sponsors and volunteers and marshalls were all ready to welcome thousands to our village. Then in March, Covid struck, and by April it was clear that a huge event – even outdoors – was not going to be possible. We postponed until summer 2021, and without the income from Carnival to act as insurance we also had to cancel our fireworks night. Other events – our Bake Off, the beer festival, and quiz nights were also impossible.
As 2021 rolled around, and Covid hadn’t disappeared, we had to make the difficult decision to postpone the Carnival again. 2021 saw a smaller Knockstock and Bake Off, complying with restrictions that were in place at the time, and we helped other groups to organise events throughout a Celebration of Summer. Entering 2022, even though government restrictions are lifting, there is not enough time to organise our full carnival – float builders won’t have the time to construct the amazing vehicle’s our crowds have come to expect, and our committee is smaller than we’d like. But …
We’re not going to sit and do nothing! This summer there will be events aplenty in Knockholt:
- The Queen’s platinum jubillee will be celebrated with an off-street street party
- Knockstock will run a smaller, more intimate event
Added to these, we will be running a Summer Fayre, a classic village fete on the Recreation Ground, with stalls and entertainments, music and fun. Have a look at our Fayre page for more details – and get in contact if you want to be involved!
We are hoping to run our full Carnival next year in 2023 – parade and all – but it’s been far too long already, so we can’t wait to see you in July!
Celebrating summer and raising money
We weren’t able to hold our Carnival last year or this year, but we decided to gather together some of the village’s groups and events and celebrate anyway. From the horticultural society’s annual show to high teas at The Harrow; from a two-day long Knockstock to an informal swap shop, we’ve been meeting (with appropriate social distance) and trying to regain some sense of normality.
Our raffle was a huge success, with over 800 tickets sold. Our thirteen winners have been notified and have chosen their prizes.
Overall, we have raised nearly £1000 for our charities, which is an excellent result. Let’s hope we can continue to return to normality next year – and host a fantastic Carnival again!
Announcing the winner of our house decorating competition!
The judging of the Christmas House Decorating competition entries took place last night, which was thankfully dry. The standard and diversity of the entries was excellent, and showed that the residents of Knockholt wanted to bring some festive cheer to our village. We were impressed by the ingenuity of some of the entries, and the final scores were very close. It’s a shame that some houses did not enter the competition!
The winning entry came from Cobby House, Pound Lane. As you can see there was a lot of work put in to this, with a variety of lights, projections, and models!
We were pleased to present our prize to the winner!
It is not too late to follow our Christmas lights trail – you can download a copy of the map below, and please consider making a donation to our charities.
We would like to thank you for supporting us and wish you all a happy Christmas.
Knockholt Carnival Committee
Follow the Christmas Trail
We are all really impressed by the decorations and lights we’ve seen around the village. Our judges are right now travelling around to view them and see which they like the best, and we’ll announce the winner soon!
But in the meantime, don’t let the judges have all the fun! You can download a map of the entries here, and go and look for yourself.
There’s no charge for this map, but please consider making a donation towards our local charities – you can do this using the form below.
We were all set to judge our Christmas decoration competition this evening, but the weather had other plans! To avoid our judges needing to sail around Knockholt on a boat, we will be delaying the judging until tomorrow. Make sure you turn on your lights by 5pm!