Folk by the Oak is just outside of London but it feels a million miles away. This one day festival is surrounded by the leafy green parkland of Hatfield Park, where you will be immersed in music, history, ancient oaks, bunting, fun and laughter. From the intimacy of our Acorn Stage to the open air festival buzz of our Main Stage, we will bring you award winning musicians and inspiring new talent in one memorable day.

Our carefully curated stages are complemented by our lovingly hand-picked street food vendors and craftspeople. For our younger ‘Folk by the Oakers’ we have a world of creative workshops to discover onsite as well as our dedicated family friendly area.

We are very proud to have Jim Moray as our festival patron and each year he hosts the day’s proceedings. His fresh and pioneering approach to folk music is very much in keeping with our own ethos and he’s a huge asset to the festival.

As a one day festival we felt it was important to bring together a collection of exceptional artists to give our audience a taste of the very best folk music around in a reasonably short space of time. In 2012 we added the Acorn Stage, which not only showcases incredible new talent, it also enables us to create a festival of wall to wall outstanding music.

We wanted Folk by the Oak to have a friendly, relaxed atmosphere – a happy mixture of local village fete and the full on festival experience! We are also indebted to our creative craftspeople, inspiring workshop leaders and culinary wizards for enriching our festival experience. They are the dedicated stallholders who bring the festival site alive with colour, creativity and imagination, showing the difference it makes when care and passion drive the making of delicious dishes or the crafting of handmade items. 

A one day festival can make for a more convenient festival experience for families in particular, and so, on top of the many other activities onsite we decided to create a dedicated family area. As a consequence we have made lots of friends and discovered many imaginative people along the way – storytellers, circus performers, fairy folk, jugglers, facepainters, singers, puppeteers, history heros and archers to name but a few!

We chose at the outset to support a local charity on a long term basis so they might benefit from our relationship more fully. Hertfordshire charity Willow are a wonderful organisation who provide special days out for seriously ill young adults. In 2026 we broke the £150K mark and to date we have raised £154,414.54!

This has been achieved through our own ticket contributions and the incredible generosity of our audience, with all money going to support Willow’s vital work.

We are lucky to be able to stage Folk by the Oak in Hatfield Park – a beautiful rolling landscape surrounded by ancient trees. The Elizabeth Oak Field where the festival takes place is the inspiration for our name. It is the perfect backdrop for Folk by the Oak, and enhances that wonderful sense of freedom and escape that festivals strive to create.

Folk by the Oak has opened up exciting pathways to new projects which were all an absolute joy to be a part of. Our latest project Spell Songs has grown into something rather wonderful, but it all began with the highly acclaimed Elizabethan Session and Sweet Liberties tour and recordings. Both were glorious gatherings of some wonderful folk musicians creating new music together and we are grateful to the invaluable support of EFDSS (The English Folk Dance and Song Society) in both instances. From the outset we wanted to bring something unique to each festival and these projects allow us the opportunity to add something very special to our Main Stage line up.

Spell Songs

Our latest and ongoing project Spell Songs is a musical evolution of both The Lost Words & The Lost Spells books by acclaimed author Robert Macfarlane and award-winning illustrator Jackie Morris; creating a listening experience that intersects music, literature, language and art, as a call to reawaken our love of the wild.

The Spell Songs ensemble features the multifaceted talents and collaborative genius of Karine Polwart, Julie Fowlis, Seckou Keita, Kris Drever, Rachel Newton, Beth Porter and Jim Molyneux — all renowned musicians in their own right. Together, their music blends a diverse array of sounds from instruments like the kora, electroharp, cello, Indian harmonium and more, which are gorgeously layered with musical and linguistic influences spanning from Orkney to Senegal.