'Hardwick has always been a place shaped by creativity and ambition, so it feels fitting to host Women Who Make right here where Bess of Hardwick began her incredible legacy'
Hardwick Hall is to host a major new celebration of women’s creativity, identity and making – bringing together artists, makers, heritage craftspeople, performers and communities from across Derbyshire and beyond.
Derbyshire Makes - Women Who Make Festival will take place on Saturday, May 30 in the lead-up to the 500-year anniversary of the birth of Bess Hardwick, one of the most influential women of the Elizabethan age.
The free for all visitors event, which will run from 10am until 4pm, will feature workshops, talks, live demonstrations, installations, poetry, heritage walks, street food and family activities, alongside a marketplace showcasing women-led creative businesses and contemporary crafts.
At the heart of the programme is a large-scale community sewing bee, Dare to Dream, inviting visitors to contribute personal stories and reflections through textiles in a collective act of making inspired by Hardwick’s globally significant textile collections.
The festival has been organised by Local in partnership with the National Trust and is part of Derbyshire Makes - a three-year cultural programme led by Derbyshire County Council.
Claire Tymon, who is Local’s creative director, has co-curated the festival with Hardwick Hall. She said: “Women Who Make is about visibility - celebrating women’s creativity not as something hidden away, but as something powerful, skilled, ambitious and culturally important. Hardwick Hall feels like the perfect place for that conversation because Bess herself used making, design and architecture to shape her own legacy in a world that rarely gave women public power.”
Elle Maxwell-Wood, senior visitor experience officer, said: “Hardwick has always been a place shaped by creativity and ambition, so it feels fitting to host Women Who Make right here where Bess of Hardwick began her incredible legacy. Our collaboration reflects our commitment to making heritage accessible to all and we’re proud to support this free event and welcome people from across the local community to take part and be inspired by women’s creativity, past and present.”
The programme also includes live spinning demonstrations from heritage craft specialist Diane Fisher, highlighting endangered textile skills; natural dye walks and workshops led by Abigail Wastie exploring the relationship between landscape and craft; and Threads of Identity, an in-conversation examining textiles and portraiture as a language of memory, identity and expression.
Elsewhere, visitors can experience The Blackwell Brides installation by Platform Thirty1, pop-up poetry performances responding to the site and its histories, and heritage walks tracing Bess of Hardwick’s architectural vision and influence.
Talks and workshops focused on textile conservation and women working in heritage sectors will offer behind-the-scenes insight into creative and often overlooked careers connected to preserving cultural history.
Hands-on making opportunities for all ages and garden games will be available.
Women Who Make explores themes of value, care, courage, circular futures, enterprise and belonging. Rooted in Derbyshire’s landscapes, heritage and creative networks, and connected to wider feminist, environmental and cultural movements, the programme creates space for reflection, learning and collective action.
Inspired by Bess of Hardwick’s extraordinary legacy as a builder, textile patron and self-made woman, the programme explores what it means for women to create, lead and leave a mark, both then and now.