FAMILIES from Worcestershire, Herefordshire and the surrounding areas can enjoy a sky high display of aerial expertise at one of the best rated kite festivals in the country at the weekend.

The Leominster/Hereford Kite Festival is being held at the National Trust’s Berrington Hall, near Leominster, on Saturday July 15 and Sunday July 16 from 10am to 5pm each day.

Kite enthusiasts from all over the country are expected to converge on the ground at the hall for this annual spectacle when visitors will be in for a visual treat as some of the most attractive and colourful kites will be seen at heights not usually reached in this country.

Organiser Bill Souten, of Midlands Kite Fliers, who lives in Droitwich, said kites are normally only allowed to fly up to 200 feet for safety reasons but the festival has special permission from the Civil Aviation Authority to fly as high as 1,500 feet.

“We have some of the country’s best kite flyers coming along and all the kite fliers are really enthusiastic and will talk to anyone about what they do.

“Kite fliers will be coming from all over the country and staying the weekend to fly their kites. We have people coming from Cornwall, London and Glasgow.

“I have one guy coming from Dorset and he is bringing an inflatable Dragon kite which is about 30ft by 30ft. There are only a couple in the country. It was specially made in Germany.”

The only retail company making kites called Sky Bums, which is based in Wem, Shropshre, is attending. “They are fantastic kite-makers. There is a guy coming from Bristol and he makes individual kites to order. It is like flying art,” said Bill.

There will also be synchronised displays to music by a team called Air Head. “They are the best in this part of the world.

“We will probably have a couple of thousand people come along over the weekend.”

The festival, which was originally held in Hereford, has been running for about 20 years and is now regarded as one of the top dozen events of its kind in the kite flying calendar.

Even if the weather is a bit still or really windy there are some kites which will fly with very low wind, while there are others which will fly in high winds.

“If it is pouring with rain we are a bit snookered,” admitted Bill. However, he added that the National Trust at Berrington Hall was planning to put on a kite workshop.

Bill said there would be stalls where visitors can buy kites and he is planning to run a competition where kite fliers will be challenged to buy an umbrella from him and make it fly.

Anyone is welcome to go along and join in the aerial fun. Bill said two years ago a family went along to the festival and got chatting to him while he was flying a kite very high. He gave it to them to fly for a while when he went off and they didn’t really want to hand it back when he returned. They were flying it for four hours and came back the next day. “They were hooked,” said Bill.

For more information about the Leominster/Hereford Kite Festival 2017 visit the National Trust website https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/events/415b6a19-2d0e-44e1-8b66-874cba3fbdb0/pages/details or Kite Calendar http://www.kitecalendar.co.uk/

Berrington Hall visitor experience assistant Eleanor Dobson said: “It is an all weekend event and it is free to enter apart from the hall’s normal admission charges. We have had a lot of interest on Facebook. A lot of people are saying they are very excited to see it is coming back again. Some of the displays by the big stunt kites are really incredible.

“We are running a kite making workshop for children in our pavilion. It is a craft workshop for children to make a small kite.

“It is just a really nice event and it is outdoors. It gets a lot of families out into the landscape, which is what we want and it is lovely for families.”