Sunday 5 July 2026
The T S Eliot Festival is back again this year on Sunday 5 July with another exciting line-up providing an inspirational day of talks, readings, and discussions at Little Gidding, near the pigsty, the dull façade, and the tombstone.
This year’s lineup includes the past president of the International T S Eliot Society, Jayme Stayer; prize-winning poet Hannah Sullivan; regular presenters of the podcast Close Readings, Seamus Perry and Mark Ford; and former Old Bailey judge Charles Wide.
Jayme Stayer will deliver this year’s Little Gidding Lecture. The title is ‘Unitarian, Puritan, Calvinist, Jansenist, Atheist: The Reverend Mr Eliot’s Erstwhile Heresies’. Professor Stayer is the author of Becoming T S Eliot: The Rhetoric of Voice and Audience in Inventions of the March Hare.
Hannah Sullivan won the T S Eliot prize in 2018 for her collection Three Poems. She is associate professor of English literature at New College, Oxford. Her talk on T S Eliot and anti-Semitism is called ‘The Diabolical Thirties’.
Seamus Perry and Mark Ford will offer a taste of their podcast format at this year’s Festival. The topic is called ‘John Hayward and the Making of Little Gidding’.
For those who wish to look beyond the dull façade, Charles Wide will be leading a series of brief, informative tours of St John’s Church during the lunch break.
Featuring talks and poetry, conversation and debate, and delicious food and wine, the Festival is a delightful celebration of Eliot and of Little Gidding, and a chance to meet other Eliot scholars and enthusiasts. It takes place in the gardens of Ferrar House at Little Gidding in rural Cambridgeshire. In addition to the programme of Eliot-related events, morning coffee, a two-course buffet lunch, and afternoon tea will be served. Doors open at 11:00, the programme begins at 11:30, and the Festival concludes at 5:30.
All meals and refreshment are included in the ticket price of £60. (For members of the TS Eliot Society and of the Friends of Little Gidding, tickets are £55; for students, £25.)
Tickets
Click the button below to buy tickets for this year’s Festival; or buy from Eventbrite via eliot-festival-2026.eventbrite.co.uk.