Karen Cater and Colin Cater of Sible Hedingham, Essex set up Hedingham Fair in 1997, as a vehicle for Karen’s art. Karen set out to explore visually the mystical and popular heritage of the British Isles through images used principally as greetings cards and T-shirts. We care about the environment and our environmental policy can be found here.

Karen Cater’s first card series in 1997 featured folk customs actively celebrated in East Anglia; mummers plays, Molly Dancing and the incomparable Whittlesea Straw Bear. Other customs images followed, the May Day Obby Osses in Padstow and Minehead, Abbots Bromley Horn Dance, Hastings Jack in the Green, Saddleworth Rushcart, Morris Dancing at Bampton and Thaxted. From these customs our Christmas card designs and from 2001 the annual Calendar of Traditional Customs developed.

Early on, almost by chance Karen Cater produced a Green Man image, which revealed both a market and a much deeper British mystical culture and heritage underlying contemporary folk customs - centuries of strife ridden Christianity superimposed on more ancient nature religions, mythologies and deities. Most surprisingly, this hidden mystical heritage had coalesced into a contemporary new religion - Wicca - and led to a renewed flowering for many who follow the older pathways, Heathens, Druids, Shamen, Witches and Cunning Men and followers of the religions of ancient Rome, Greece, Egypt and Mesopotamia, all loosely grouped together as Paganism.

Understanding and celebrating how this had happened became a central theme of Karen Cater’s work; greetings card series included Green Man, British Gods and Goddesses, Pentagrams, the Ogham Celtic Tree Alphabet and cards to celebrate the festivals Pagans care most about: Yule, the Winter Solstice and Summer Solstice, Autumn Equinox and Spring Equinox and the quarter festivals of Imbolc, Beltane, Lammas and Samhain. T-shirt designs have included the Tree of Life, Pentacle of the Elements, Herne the Hunter, Cernunnos, John Barleycorn and several designs featuring the mystical Hare. Karen Cater’s work also reflects her as a countrywoman: the farming year, country lore, hedgerow plants and the birds and animals that populate field and garden.

Hedingham Fair supports and participates in the work of folk music organisations; EFDSS, Morris Ring, Morris Federation, Open Morris, Folk Arts Network, and annual cycle of folk festivals and events, part of the modern expression of British heritage with many unexplained survivals in folklore from more ancient times. Hedingham Fair also supports and participates in the work of those who seek to reintroduce the ancient Western mysteries: Pagan Network, Druid organisations and the Pagan Federation Hedingham Fair, Sunnyside, Southey Green, Sible Hedingham, Essex, CO9 3RN      t 01787 462 731  e info@HedinghamFair.co.uk