We are delighted to announce that plans for the 2022 May Day well-dressing event are well-underway.

This is much-loved and highly-popular annual event and is brought to the town by Malvern Spa Association, with local businesses and community groups taking part. It is a celebration of Malvern’s natural and cultural history, the Hills, and the gift of pure spring water, reviving the spirit of ancient Pagan traditions, and the Victorian water cure.

We are certainly envisaging a celebration-and-a-half this year, given that the last time we held a full public well-dressing event was in 2019. In 2020 well dressing was abandoned due to Covid in 2020, although we dressed our own homes and gardens to the theme of ‘Yellow’. Then in 2021 we dressed without public events: the theme was ‘Planets and Stars’.

The theme that the well-dressers have voted for this year is Literature. They are already hard at work, planning displays that will reflect the complex relationships between water and prose.

Literature is a vast subject, encompassing everything from Shakespeare to Roald Dahl, Dickens to Mervyn Peake and Harry Potter to Paddington Bear; it is limitless. Malvern itself has a grand literary heritage, ranging from William Langland’s 14th century masterpiece Piers Plowman, to C S Lewis and J R R Tolkien, and even the more contemporary Barbara Cartland.

As always, the talents and creative energy of everyone involved will produce astounding creations. Around 200 adults and over 500 school children will be involved, and up to 45 wells will be dressed.

Well Dressing 2022 Timetable

Dressing will take place on Friday 29th April, and judging will be on Saturday 30th.

There will be prize-giving with rosettes and certificates in Priory Park on Bank Holiday Monday 2nd May.

Visitors can view the wonderful creations by setting off across the Hills. You can make the journey on foot, by bicycle, on a self-drive tour or by minibus. Maps can be downloaded from the Malvern Well Dressing Facebook page or from Malvern Tourist Information Centre.

There will also be many other events in and around Malvern during May Day week, with a focus on health and well-being. There will be well-blessings and different forms of water-related entertainment taking place too, with talks, concerts and more.

All the dressings will be up until Wednesday 4th May, and some may not be taken down until the following weekend, so there should be plenty of time to get around them all.

For more information about well-dressing, and to see how work on the displays is progressing, visit Malvern Well-dressing’s Facebook page

Also, there is a really good two-page spread about the above events and the MSA in general on pages 14 and 15 of the latest edition (Feb-Mar 22) of our local magazine All About Malvern