Marlborough LitFest is delighted to announce its main event sponsor for 2026 as St Mary’s and St Margaret’s Calne. As a charitable arts organisation, LitFest depends on its partners and sponsors to help stage its annual festival; bring free events to children, families and the wider community; and take the joy and transformative power of reading to the current and next generation of readers.
St Mary’s and St Margaret’s are two of Wiltshire’s leading independent schools, sharing a 27-acre campus in Calne. St Mary’s Calne has been a pioneer of girls’ education since 1873 and is one of the top boarding and day schools for girls in the UK. St Margaret’s is a nursery and prep school for boys and girls aged 2 to 11 years old, where every child can explore, grow and flourish academically and personally. At the heart of the schools is the stunning award-winning Lumi Library, where a love of books and reading for pleasure and for academic study flourishes.
St Mary’s has already hosted a number of LitFest free school events organised by the festival, demonstrating how meeting an author inspires schoolchildren to both read and to become writers themselves. Both Marlborough LitFest and St Mary’s and St Margaret’s share the ethos that reading for pleasure matters and is key to educational success and transforming lives. According to a National Literacy Trust 2024 Literacy Survey, twice as many young people who enjoy reading in their free time have above average reading skills and perform better overall. Former Children’s Laureate, Frank Cotterell-Boyce (who appeared at LitFest in 2023) says: “When you share a book you’re giving a hug that will last the rest of their life because it anchors happiness and helps nurture resilience.”
Mary-Vere Parr, Chair of Marlborough LitFest, said: “We are thrilled to welcome St Mary’s and St Margaret’s Calne as LitFest’s new main event sponsor for 2026. It is exciting to be working with an organisation that shares our belief in the power and importance of reading and we look forward to developing our partnership.”
Mrs Anne Wakefield, Head of St Mary’s and St Margaret’s said: “I am delighted to extend our partnership with Marlborough LitFest in our joint ambition to extend a love of reading in all forms. Once again, LitFest has curated a first-rate programme of breadth and depth to both educate and entertain – it has become one of Wiltshire’s leading cultural annual events. I am proud that our partnership means LitFest can continue delivering its hugely important programme of free events to local children in and around Marlborough, which chimes well with our outreach programme, where our Sixth Form pupils volunteer at local primary schools and care homes for older people. Thank you to the volunteers and supporters of Marlborough.”