National Folklore Survey for England presentation

Name: National Folklore Survey for England presentation
Start: 2025-10-07T19:30:00+01:00
Location: Crediton Library

Schedule

Tue, 07 Oct, 2025 at 07:30 pm

UTC+01:00

Location

Crediton Library | Exeter, EN

On Tuesday 7th October, the team from Sheffield Hallam University responsible for the National Folklore Survey for England will be visiting Crediton. The presentation, which is free to attend, will take place at Crediton Library beginning at 7.30pm and refreshments will be available.
Charlie Cooper’s recent series Myth Country (streaming on BBC iPlayer), revealed how the peculiar rituals and traditions of this country ‘bring people together’. Far from being outdated and trivial, folklore is, he says, ‘very much alive and thriving on social media’.
The National Folklore Survey funded by UKRI Arts & Humanities Research Council (AHRC) addresses the lack of robust research evidence into the cultural value of folklore in post-Brexit, post-pandemic, multicultural England. It aims to create new data to answer two research questions: ‘How have folkloric beliefs and practices shaped England’s social, cultural and spiritual identity?’ and ‘To what extent are ideas of nationalism and colonial attitudes informed by contemporary notions of English folklore?’.
The project is led by Dr David Clarke and Co-leads are Dr Diane Rodgers from the Centre for Contemporary Legend at Sheffield Hallam University, Dr Ceri Houlbrook and Professor Owen Davies, who founded the MA Folklore Studies at the University of Hertfordshire. It aims to capture an accurate snapshot of the folklore of multicultural England and gain a new understanding of the impact of colonial and empire narratives on previous surveys.
The national survey was conducted by IPSOS-UK and has garnered national press interest. Crediton charity The Folklore Library and Archive, who have organised this presentation, were asked to act as project partners on the survey.