ln response to growing concern about rising rates of Covid 19 locally, we have reluctantly decided to postpone the much anticipated Race Night until spring of next year. Do keep an eye on our website and social media for information about the new date and be sure to put it in your diary.

 If you have never been to Ascot and always wondered what all the fuss was about, then try Otford Races first! Entry to the event will be £5.00 per person payable on the night. Doors open at 6.45pm and the first race, one of eight, will take place at 7.15pm. There will be a cash bar and refreshments, so why not get a party together? More information about what promises to be a great evening will be published online nearer the date.

The Otford Village Fete on Monday 30^th August and St Bartholomew’s Church Fair on Saturday 4^th September provide two great photo opportunities. The theme of our Summer Photo Competition is Fetes and Fairs in Otford, so get your cameras out and get snapping. Full details and an entry form are on our website at www.otfordsociety.org.uk/projects#photography, and the competition closes at the end of September. There is a £25 gift voucher to be won, a chance to support one of our wonderful local shops.

This year has been anything but easy, but the Fete Committee has managed to organise an exciting event this Bank Holiday Monday. In addition to the usual Dog Show there will be baby yoga and taster sessions run by Otford Lawn Tennis Club. For details of how to sign up for these and much more go to www.otfordvillagefete.org .

There will be food and drink outlets scattered around the site, and live music both inside the Players Hall and on the Recreation Ground throughout the day.

Finally, a plea for helpers. The Fete Committee works tirelessly for the benefit of residents but there is so much to do and organise on the day. If you can spare a couple of hours on Monday 30 August we would be so grateful. Whether it’s selling raffle tickets or collecting the entry money, all seated, or helping with the various activity and craft stalls, it’s all fun but without help we will struggle. Please contact Patty, Chair of the Otford Village Fete Committee, on 07769 706047 if you can help.

The Otford Village Fete has been going for more than 70 years. This photo was taken in the 1950s, and you can be sure we’ll be just as busy in 2021!

As part of Otford Adventures Phil Clucas has designed and cut a giant Labyrinth in what was the Great Tudor Courtyard of Otford Palace – now ‘lost’ beneath meadow-grass. The convoluted circular pathway leading to the mysterious ‘Wishing Stone’ will be unveiled at Sunday’s ‘Picnic at the Palace‘, when children – and ‘older children up to the age of ninety-three’ – will be able to walk the Labyrinth’s sinuous and ever-changing route.

As you journey along the path you will be tracing one of the first designs known to history, as the Labyrinth dates back at least four thousand years. During that time it has been regarded as a ‘sacred pathway’, a ‘fertility route’, a ‘processional pilgrimage’, or simply as an ‘enchanting bit of fun’… make of it what you will…!

Otford’s Labyrinth can be freely visited at any time, and will remain in place for the next couple of months (until the path finally grows-out). Until then, the Otford Society hope it will prove to be a feature that fascinates today’s ‘pilgrims’ as much as it did previous Tudor owners of the Palace.