Back after a 10-year break, a world-famous Lincolnshire flower festival is making a colourful return in 2023.
For 54 years the Spalding Flower Parade celebrated the area’s heritage as the centre of Britain’s tulip growing industry, thanks to the fields around the riverside market being awash with dazzling spring colours.
Each year the internationally renowned event attracted thousands of visitors to see the brightly coloured floats parade through the town, but funding and other issues meant the 2013 event became the last.
Now it will make a grand return on 13 May, organised and run by volunteers from the community, and backed by local businesses and sponsors.
Promising a whole new look, but also including a few original features as a nod to nostalgia, this year’s theme will be Spalding Through the Decades.
Historically, Spalding had staged an annual parade of tulip-decorated floats – each one covered in up to 100,000 flower heads – since 1959.Within a few years the colourful cavalcade of tulip decorated floats, winding its way through the town, accompanied by marching bands and entertainers became a global attraction.
Check out our Newsfile story on the Flower Parade’s return here.
And as the countdown continues towards its eagerly awaited return, here’s a look back at some of the colourful floats that made Spalding the place to be for spring in times gone by.