Cambridge Corn Exchange x Cambridge Literary Festival - Celebration Event
In 2025, Cambridge Corn Exchange commissioned Cambridge Literary Festival to work with 5x local schools to produce creative writing responses to stimulus based around key historical events at Cambridge Corn Exchange. Across 6 weeks, approximately 200 local students worked with renowned authors Helen Moss, Ruth Hatfield, and Chris Priestley to create their responses, many of which have now been collated into a special commemorative book that forms part of the 150 Anniversary Exhibition and can be purchased by families.
Purchase your copy of commemorative book!
Get your copy hereThis project is funded by the National Lottery Heritage Fund.
About The National Lottery Heritage Fund:
Our vision is for heritage to be valued, cared for and sustained for everyone, now and in the future. That’s why as the largest funder for the UK’s heritage we are dedicated to supporting projects that connect people and communities to heritage, as set out in our strategic plan, Heritage 2033. Heritage can be anything from the past that people value and want to pass on to future generations. We believe in the power of heritage to ignite the imagination, offer joy and inspiration, and to build pride in place and connection to the past. Over the next 10 years, we aim to invest £3.6billion raised for good causes by National Lottery players to make a decisive difference for people, places and communities.
Cambridge Literary Festival Background
Launched in 2003 as Cambridge Wordfest, the Festival has grown to attract a global audience and has a reputation as a leading UK literary festival for the intellectually curious. CLF delivers two festivals every year, the flagship five-day Spring Festival and a weekend Winter Festival in November. In addition, there are regular one-off events throughout the year and a free schools day in May for children aged from 5-18. CLF holds a digital archive of over 400 recordings which can be accessed through a subscription to CLF Player.
Thousands of wordsmiths, writers and authors have graced our festival stages and have enthralled, entertained and inspired our audiences. We now welcome hundreds of writers and speakers to Cambridge each year and stage events that cover a huge variety of topics. We debate current issues, present literary greats alongside debut writers and welcome scientists, artists, politicians, comedians, novelists, historians, journalists and poets. A free Children’s Festival returns every Spring, hosting an array of high-quality, fun, interactive events designed to spark the imaginations of a younger audience and enthuse a new generation of booklovers. In 2026, the Festival will launch its inaugural Children’s Choice Award, in partnership with three primary schools in Cambridge.
CLF is a registered charity (reg. no. 1153944). The Charity’s aims and objectives are the advancement of education for the benefit of the public by the promotion of literature, language and the arts through a literary festival in Cambridge.
