WIMBORNE Minster Folk Festival will not be taking its usual form this year but has instead opted to offer two concerts for people to stream online.

These pictures show the event on June 10, 2001, when social distancing was the best part of 20 years from affecting all of our lives.

The weekend-long Wimborne folk festival hosted the biggest gathering of traditional dance teams and bands ever seen in the area before that time.

In all, the annual festival played host to 68 teams of dancers covering most of the English traditions along with visiting display teams from the USA and France and also Irish and Scottish dancers.

The event featured two processions, the opener and the main festival procession

As well as the dancing, which could be seen all around the town throughout the weekend, concerts featured a mix of the very best traditional and contemporary musicians, bands and singers.

Bournemouth Echo:

Over the years Wimborne Folk Festival had been noted for its slant towards Celtic music and 2001 featured some of the best around including Flook, Drop the Box, The Alan Burke Band, Dalta and local musicians Pete Minkey & Clive Cunningham.

The final concert on Sunday evening at the Allendale Centre provided the festival’s musical highlight with the Oysterband Big Session, when nine of the UK’s leading folk musicians joined forces for an evening that featured new material, written especially for the evening, alongside refreshing and compelling arrangements of traditional tunes.

Bournemouth Echo:

For the social dancers there were three Ceilidhs , the first with the Bismarcks and the other with Zydeco Active, one of the country’s top Cajun bands.

In the pubs throughout the weekend more music was provided by some of the area’s best bands with styles to suit all tastes.