Windows of Fungi Town
As Hay is transformed into the UK’s first ever Fungi Town local shops will be dressing for the occasion. Take a tour of the town’s shop windows and choose your favourite display.
Food in Hay Castle Café
Visit the popular Hay Castle Café and enjoy some mushroom-themed dishes
Fungal Emporium
Find the perfect gift for the mushroom lover in your life in Hay Castle’s pop-up fungal emporium.
Meet the Growers
Your chance to meet specialist mushroom farmers from across Wales and buy exotic fungi and mushroom supplements to take home.
FREE
Fungal Rummage
Come and see, smell and touch some of the incredible mushrooms, toadstools and lichens growing wild around Hay. Bring in unusual fungi and see if our team of experts and enthusiasts can identify them.
FREE
Science Corner
Discover the microscopic world of soil and fungi with Hay Regenerative Soils. Bring a sample from your compost heap to look at under a microscope, identify fungal hyphae, spores and microorganisms from the soil food web. Learn about the importance of below-ground biodiversity whilst checking if your compost heap is active.
FREE
Operatic Garlic Mushroom at Leaf Kitchen
Opera singer and chef Haydn serves up home made garlic mushroom soup from Leaf Kitchen on Lion Street.
Mushroom Printing Workshop
Join artist and printmaker Yuli Gates for a hands-on introduction to the art of lino printmaking — with a twist. In this workshop, you’ll learn traditional carving and printing techniques while exploring the fascinating process of creating natural printmaing inks from mushrooms, as detailed in the book and website: The Mushroom Color Atlas.
SOLD OUT
Pickling and Preserving Workshop
Join local author and forager Liz Knight from Forage Fine Foods on a masterclass to help you preserve and pickle seasonal food - including mushrooms!
Booking: Email tim@clan-cic.org
Make A Mushroom Patch
Join Abi from Oil & Oak and have some fun creating your own unique Mushroom Patch. Using fabric as collage, basic hand sewing techniques and fabric paint you’ll create a patch of dreams.
Suitable for all abilities, no sewing experience need, all materials provided.
Book on Oil & Oak website: www.oilandoak.co.uk/workshops
Burger Me!
Enjoy a Fungi Town burger and other delights at the Globe at Hay Restaurant.
Puff Ball Parade
Fungi Town invites everyone to join our joyful closing ceremony, the family-friendly Puff Ball parade. Wonderbrass, Wales’s biggest fun-loving community brass band, will lead the parade, from the Market Square to the Castle lawn, bringing the outdoor party with a mixture of jazz, pop, ska, funk and fun. We'd love to see some fungi fancy dress or just come as yourself and get in the fungi-groove to red hot interpretation of songs you know and love. Remember mushrooms dance best in the rain!
Fermentation - Kombucha Workshop
Join local writer and yeast expert Simon Poffley from The Fermentarium for a deep dive into the fizzy, flavoursome world of yeast-based drinks. Learn about the cultural journey of kombucha from Tibet to California, wrap your taste-buds around different yeast-derived items, and create your own kombucha.
Tickets £25 from Hay Castle website
Make and Print a Mushroom Pennant
Join Abi from Oil & Oak and have some fun creating your own unique Mushroom Pennant. We’ll use calico and cut out your Pennant before designing your mushroom stamp and printing it onto your pennant. You can add some tassels or fringe too!
Suitable for all abilities, no sewing experience need, all materials provided.
Book on Oil & Oak website: www.oilandoak.co.uk/workshops
Can I Eat It?
Hear Marlow Renton of Wild Food UK describe and introduce wild edible fungi and answer your questions.
Cook on the Wild Side
Marlow Renton demonstrates some amazing mushroom recipes from the new Wild Food UK Forager’s Cookbook.
Follow the Rain
Second UK screening of film featuring fungi experts Stephen Axford and Catherine Marciniak on a stunning journey through Australia’s wild landscapes. With breathtaking imagery and a soundtrack of symphonic proportions, Follow the Rain is a sensory experience that unearths the foundation of life down under.
Screening to be hosted by Hay Castle.
Mushrooms and Mental Health
A fascinating discussion between clinical psychiatrist and leading expert Dr Ben Sessa and local author Nina Lyon about the science of mushrooms, and their use in treating issues such as addiction, depression and PTSD.
SOLD OUT
Why Fungi Matter
Dive into the past, present and future of nature’s forgotten kingdom with Professor Katie Field from Sheffield University
Follow the Rain
UK Premier of film featuring fungi experts Stephen Axford and Catherine Marciniak on a stunning journey through Australia’s wild landscapes. With breathtaking imagery and a soundtrack of symphonic proportions, Follow the Rain is a sensory experience that unearths the foundation of life down under.
SOLD OUT
2nd screening now available on Sunday 5 at 4pm
Screening to be hosted by Hay Castle.
Baka Bakery
Baka Bakery will be featuring special mushroom fayre over the weekend of Fungi Town. You can find them on Facebook
Mushroom Caricatures
Ever wondered what you would look like as a cartoon mushroom? This is your chance to find out. Monsieur Champignon will be interpreting you as your favourite fungus.
Find Monsieur Champignon in the Castle on Saturday
From chicken shed to mushroom farm: ReFarm
A short film telling the incredible story of a five-year mission to convert former Norfolk chicken sheds into a mushroom farm. Using less water, space, and minimal resources, this breakthrough method could reshape the future of food production.
FREE
