Fungi Town is an annual three-day community led arts and science festival that celebrates fungi through talks, art, film, science and education.
We have been working on the programme and are pleased to announce the line up so far.
Events will be added as we get nearer the date!
Baka will have a variety of mushroom themed baked goods on offer from garlic mushroom focaccia to our fan favourite mixed mushroom soup. As well as our mushroom specials our usual fresh baked sourdough bread, savoury pasties, French pastries and cakes will also be available.
Opening times for Fungi Town weekend:
Fri 2 Oct - 8am-2pm
Sat 3 Oct - 8am-2pm
Sun 4 Oct - 9am-2pm
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. People's choice votes can be made at Oil & Oak (deliver to the GIANT mushroom).
You can also collect the letters on your journey, find them all and decipher the mushroom name and be entered into our prize draw for a chance to win an epic fungi award. Trail Maps can be found at Oil & Oak, Hay Castle and Londis, completed maps can be given in at Oil & Oak, deliver to the GIANT mushroom.
Shops involved include: Addymans Books - Baka Bakery - Bartrums - Dugans - Gay-on-Wye - Golesworthys - Hay-on-Wye Booksellers - Bohemian Folk - Hay Deli- Londis - North Books - Oil & Oak - The Wobbly Owl and many more!
Shepherds is joining Fungi Town with a special menu celebrating the variety of seasonal mushrooms. Alongside its popular grilled sandwiches, home-baked cakes, scones and savoury bakes, look out for wild mushroom, thyme and shallot tart, chestnut mushroom pinwheels, a roasted Portobello mushroom melt and a shiitake, Taleggio and parsley pesto toastie. And for something warming, try the special Fungi Town hot chocolate, made with dark chocolate, organic oat milk and Lion’s Mane powder.
Shepherd’s Parlour, 9 High Town, Hay, HR3 5AE
Join seasoned guide, Head of Nature at The Lost Gardens of Heligan, and self-declared ‘mushroom tickler’ Dan Ryan, for a family-friendly fungi hunt through the hills above Hay. Whether you’re a curious beginner or experienced mycologist, all are welcome.
Dress for the weather, wear sturdy boots and, if you have them, bring a basket, small containers, penknife and hand lens.
The forage will be walking down to the Warren in Hay.
NB: This isn't a forage for food, but a chance to get a closer look at Hay's rich fungal diversity, and collect specimens to display in the castle.
Tickets £5 through Hay Castle website
This talk will provide the very latest insights into the use of mycoremediation - the use of mushrooms to clean and filter water - in a rapidly growing project being undertaken by Flete Field Lab CIC. Alice Sophia Pefanis and Honor Wolf are jointly offering this talk. They bring together expertise in mycology, fungal ecology, ecosystem restoration, and community engagement to support research, education, and practical environmental action.
Tickets £5 from Hay Castle Website
Ever wondered where our knowledge of fungi came from? Dr Nathan Smith, FLS, senior mycologist for the National Museum of Wales, explores the histories of fungi and the people that study them. Expect stories of drinking, betrayal, and a fair bit of mushroom-eating. There may even be a song or two!
Tickets £12 through Hay Castle website
After last year’s sell-out talk, we’re delighted to welcome Ali Mac — AKA The FUNgi Guy — back to Fungi Town for another fungi-filled adventure, delivered in his own wonderfully inimitable style. Expect games, puppets, questionable props and plenty of audience participation. In Ali’s world, learning about fungi is anything but a chore.
Tickets £12/£6 through Hay Castle website
Join Tim Kaye from Cultivating Learning and Nature for a fungal exploration of Dorstone’s churchyard. Discover how important fungi are, find and identify as many types as possible, and play a game of Fungo!
This activity is part of the Dorstone Settlement Timeline project, based at St Faith's Church Dorstone, supported by The National Lottery Heritage Fund.
St Faith's Church, Dorstone, Hereford HR3 6AW (10am-1pm)
Free - drop in
Find the perfect gift for the mushroom lover in your life in Hay Castle’s pop-up fungal emporium.
Join artist and printmaker Yuli Gates for a hands-on introduction to the art of lino printmaking, with a mushroom twist. In this workshop, you’ll learn traditional carving and printing techniques while exploring the fascinating process of creating natural printmaking inks from mushrooms, as detailed in the book and website which Yuli illustrated:
The Mushroom Color Atlas.
https://www.mushroomcoloratlas.com/
Tickets £35 through Hay Castle website
Discover the microscopic world of soil and fungi with Hay Regenerative Soils & Soil Smiths from Soil Ecology Lab. 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. Encouragement to draw what you see, feel & talk about whilst looking down the microscope to be a part of an ongoing community exhibition of soils & fungi.
Taking place in the Great Hall all weekend between 10am and 4pm
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
Discover why your garden might be hiding more fungal life than you think. RHS expert and author Dr Jassy Drakulic asks whether typical gardening habits are silently suppressing an ecosystem that is already there. Drawing on recent field evidence, Jassy reveals what is really going on beneath our feet, and why it matters for tackling problems like Honey Fungus.
Come away with practical, low-effort changes for your own garden: what to leave alone, what to avoid, and how to invite fungi in as allies rather than threats. No mycology degree required, just curiosity about the hidden half of your garden.
Tickets £12 through Hay Castle website
Mushrooms are woven into Japan’s food culture, valued for their rich flavours, textures and umami. Enjoy a Japanese lunch by Kazuko of Belmont House, featuring four carefully prepared mushroom dishes, accompanied by traditional shiitake mushroom tea.
12pm until 6pm
£25 per person
email belmonthouse@btinternet.com
07983 523989
Join Jassy Drakulic and Lorin Von Longo-Liebenstein for an outdoor workshop on Hay Castle lawn.
Against popular belief, mushroom growing in gardens does not only work behind the house, tucked away in the shade. There are many ways to include fungi into gardens and even more good reasons to do so. Fungi play an incredibly important role in most ecosystems and including them in your garden can bring a variety of benefits to your green space that go beyond a delicious harvest.
Tickets £10 through Hay Castle website
Join Professor Lynne Boddy from Cardiff University for a masterclass introduction to the amazing hidden kingdom of fungi - a kingdom with more species than plants and vertebrates combined. Working unseen, fungi are essential to Earth’s terrestrial ecosystems, and without them we could not survive.
Lynne is a prominent scientist, prolific author and ardent communicator of the mysteries and importance of fungi.
Tickets £15 through Hay Castle website
Lion's Mane, Reishi, Cordyceps, Turkey Tail: medicinal mushrooms are everywhere and promising miraculous results, but what does the evidence actually say? This beginner-friendly talk unpicks the evidence from the hype, explores the modern and traditional uses of medicinal fungi, and looks at how to identify good products.
A fascinating discussion between Kit Ondaatje Rolls, Hania Opienski and Oli Genn-Bash.
Tickets £12 from Hay Castle website
Fungi have often been overlooked in conservation, as they are hard to see, hard to study and frequently underappreciated. However, there is a growing realisation that these unsung heroes need conserving too. In this talk, Cardiff University ecologist and lecturer Dr Sarah Christofides will introduce you to the fungal stars of a major new conservation effort and explain how you can get involved in helping to preserve them.
Tickets £12 from Hay Castle website
In this conversation, Professor Andy Letcher of Exeter University will discuss the cultural history of the magic mushroom, with a focus on the UK. There is renewed interest in the potential of psychedelics to address a number of stubborn mental illnesses, as well as a burgeoning psychedelic underground, driven especially by people travelling to the Amazon to consume ayahuasca in healing ceremonies. In this talk Andy will challenge many of the myths that have arisen around magic mushrooms, answering questions such as: were the builders of Stonehenge tripping and was Santa Claus originally a mushroom munching shaman?
Tickets £12 from Hay Castle website
We're so excited to bring our unique social cinema formula to Fungi Town this October. As 99p Films, we've got an evening of breath-work, documentaries, group discussions and a feast coming right up! Roll-up to our pop-up cinema for films about mushrooms; stay for the stroganoff.
We're excited to partner with the Culturing Dish, a network of researchers, cultivators, educators and artists across England and Ireland. Openly sharing knowledge of all things related to fungi; members from the culturing dish will be there on the night to answer any questions with expertise.
Tickets CLICK HERE
Lee Davies is the collection manager for the largest, oldest, and most scientifically important collection of dried fungi in the world.
Kew Fungarium holds over 1.25 million specimens from all seven continents, representing roughly 60% of known global fungal diversity.
In this talk he will discuss his life and the remarkable fungi he has met, from his work at Kew to expeditions in Madagascar.
Tickets £12 from Hay Castle website
How can fungi shape the way we write poetry? Join mycologist and poet Nathan Smith for an introduction to fungally-informed poetic structures and practices.
Poetry Bookshop, The Pavement, Lion Street, Hay-on-Wye, HR3 5BU
Saturday 3 October, 6-7pm
Join us for an evening of fungal celebration at The Globe, with a DJ, mushroom cocktails, and the world famous mushroom line dance. Mushroom outfits strongly encouraged. Puff balls also welcome.
Tickets £5 from Hay Castle website
Join Rich Wright, a conservation mycologist with over 20 years' experience in fungal ecology, rare species translocation and cultivation, for a talk on rethinking decay in Britain's oaks. Having held posts at Kew, Cardiff University and Plantlife, Rich brings deep scientific and field knowledge to heart-rot, a process often misunderstood despite its huge value for woodland biodiversity. The talk draws on years spent among ancient oaks and their fungi, exploring what decay can teach us about the living world, and ourselves.
Tickets £12 from Hay Castle website
Join Tim Kaye from Cultivating Learning and Nature for a fungi hunt. Whether you’re a curious beginner or experienced mycologist, all are welcome. Dress for the weather, wear sturdy boots and, if you have them, bring a basket, small containers, penknife and hand lens. NB: This isn't a forage for food, but a chance to get a closer look at Hay's rich fungal diversity.
Meet at the Treehouse Cafe on the other side of the Wye.
Tickets from Hay Castle website
Hear Marlow Renton of Wild Food UK describe and introduce wild edible fungi and answer your burning mushroom questions!
Cook On The Wild Side!He will then demonstrate some amazing mushroom recipes from the Wild Food UK Forager’s Cookbook.
Free entry at The Globe at Hay
