Free, no booking: drop-in workshops at Entry Hill on Saturday 26 September, after a pay-what-you-can feast on Friday. What is on and how to get there.

Forest of Imagination is back at Entry Hill this weekend, and the family day on Saturday 26 September is free with no booking. The former golf course off Wellsway will be filled with drop-in workshops, art installations and storytelling, all built around one question: what should Entry Hill become?

This year’s event is called River of Dreams. It follows the hidden Lyn Brook through the meadow, according to the organisers’ own programme (Forest of Imagination).

Saturday: the free family day

Most activities are drop-in and run from 11am to 4pm, according to the programme on the event’s home page. The organisers’ news post of 21 September gives wider hours of 10am to 5pm, so arrive after 11am if you want everything to be running (River of Dreams: Unfurls This Weekend).

Among the free sessions listed:

  • EarthClub Field Station with Patchlarks and Oliver Wallace, at 11am, 12.15pm, 2pm and 3.15pm, getting to know local wildlife through drawing, sculpting and stories
  • Bring the Water Back, digging, building and blocking to imagine how water could move through the site
  • Revealing the Hidden Brook, a phone-and-headphones artwork by University of Bristol students, artist Matthew Leece and sound artist Kathy Hinde, which traces imagined routes of the Lyn Brook as you walk. Bring your own phone and headphones
  • Collective Day Dreaming, hammocks under the trees with Andrew Amondson
  • Letters to the Future, a collage postcard workshop with Western Forest, imagining a forest in 2050
  • Story River, a storytelling activity, from 2pm to 3.30pm
  • The Living Bridge, an installation by Bath Preservation Trust

The programme marks one session “Ages 0 to 100”. Western Forest, which calls itself the National Forest for the West, is also running listening workshops across both days.

Friday: the Forest Feast and a night walk

Friday 25 September is the ticketed evening. Bath Community Kitchen serves the River of Dreams Forest Feast, a plant-based seasonal meal eaten as you walk through the meadow, from 6pm. Poet Toby Thompson and Kilter Theatre perform. Tickets are pay what you can: free, £10 or £20, booked through Eventbrite.

At 7pm comes Nocturne: Moon Garden, which is free with no booking. The organisers promise music and poetry as it gets dark, night-scented flowers, a look at the moths of Entry Hill, and moon meadow seeds to take home for your own garden.

Earlier on Friday there is a book launch at 5pm, Future Flow: Imagine the Possibilities from Bath Spa University Press, which needs booking. Friday daytime is for schools and home education groups.

Your chance to say what Entry Hill should be

This is more than a festival. The council is running what it calls an Imagination Station on site, asking visitors for ideas on the future of Entry Hill. It is open on Friday from 5pm to 7pm and Saturday from 10am to 1pm. The programme says Saturday’s ideas will feed into “future masterplanning”.

The organisers want the site to become a permanent arts, nature and community park. Last year’s event at Entry Hill, “Imagining the Future of the Forgotten Land”, ran over ten days as a proof of concept for that park, in partnership with Bath and North East Somerset Council (Forest of Imagination). It went on to win the Thornton Education Trust’s Inspire Future Generations Award for Strategic Vision.

The council’s statement, published by the organisers, says the events align with “the Council’s future ambitions for Entry Hill as set out in the Greener Places Plan”. It adds that many thousands of people have visited over the last few years. Neither statement is a decision on the site’s future. That is what the Imagination Station is collecting views for.

Getting there

The organisers ask people not to drive. Their advice (getting to Forest of Imagination 2026):

  • By bus: the Wayside stop on Wellsway is a minute’s walk from the pedestrian gate. It is served by the 13, 58, 171, 172, 173, 174, 522, D2 and D2x.
  • By car: use Odd Down park and ride and take a bus to Wellsway. Blue badge parking is available on site.
  • By bike: temporary bike racks are set up in the Entry Hill car park.
  • The address is Entry Hill, Bath BA2 5NA.

The site is a hilly former golf course with steep slopes in places, so the organisers recommend sturdy footwear. Pushchairs can be left by the bike racks, at the owner’s risk.

What it means for you

  • Saturday is free, needs no ticket, and suits all ages. Arrive after 11am for the full programme.
  • Friday’s feast costs what you choose to pay, but needs a booking.
  • If you have a view on Entry Hill’s future, the council’s Imagination Station is the place to give it this weekend.

For more to do this autumn, see our guide to things to do in Bath.

Sources