About
Whitby Museum holds the only surviving Hand of Glory anywhere — a mummified felon's hand once carried by British thieves as a charm to keep households asleep. On the first weekend of May 2026, the town that owns the artefact will finally hold a folklore festival named after it.
The Whitby Hand of Glory Folklore Festival runs Friday to Sunday, 1-3 May 2026, anchored at Flowergate Hall and rolling across small venues in the Flowergate area: the Old Chapel, the Common Room, and the Curious Information Centre. Performance, music, workshops, retail, literature, art, and poetry. All events free, capacity-subject.
It is produced by Flash Company Arts CIC, Whitby's official Community Anchor Organisation, which has run Flowergate Hall and adjacent small venues since 2018 under the strapline 'arts for all - bread and roses too!' The organising sub-brand on the Folklore Society notice is 'At the Back of the North Wind,' a name Flash Company also uses for its theatre productions.
It sits in deliberate contrast to Whitby Folk Week — 600 events, 50+ venues, every August. The Hand of Glory Festival is its quiet opposite: one weekend, one neighbourhood, no ticket, no sponsors, no press.
Highlights
- Festival
- Free · 1-3 May 2026 · Whitby
- Producer
- Flash Company Arts CIC (est. 2018)
- Anchor venue
- Flowergate Hall, YO21 3BA
- Confirmed act
- Sophia Kingshill & Liz Overs · Sat 2 May
- Followers
- 268 IG · 826 FB
Deeper Dive
Flash Company Arts CIC was incorporated in October 2018 by three founding directors — David Owen (Creative Director), Rebecca Lucy Denniff, and Joanne Gross — with Christine Amanda Koller appointed in June 2025. Its mission, in their own words, is to 'break down barriers so that people can shape their lives and communities through creativity.' Alongside the festival the CIC runs The People's Fridge and The People's Kitchen.
Only one festival session is publicly confirmed at time of writing: Sophia Kingshill and Liz Overs talking and singing about mermaids, Saturday 2 May. The Folklore Society notice is the sole external listing. There is no press, no lineup announcement page, and the social footprint is genuinely small — 268 followers on Instagram, 826 on Facebook.
If you have been waiting for the town that owns the Hand to hold a folklore festival on its own terms, this is the inaugural edition. It is the kind of programme that gets remembered later because someone went to the first one.
In Their Words
“arts for all - bread and roses too!”
“Building partnerships through the arts - the Community Anchor Organisation for Whitby”