ABOUT
Longton Carnival & Pig Walk Parade is back on Sunday 6th April 2025 with a fun-filled day of FREE amazing, family friendly entertainment in Longton town centre! Look forward to music, street theatre shows, singing, dancing, free creative workshops, an artisan market, fun fair, street food stalls and the amazing Pig Walk Parade!
Longton Carnival & Pig Walk Parade is produced by Urban Wilderness CIC, supported by the Longton community. It is funded by Arts Council England, The National Lottery Community Fund, UK Community Foundations and Stoke-on-Trent City Council through the Shared Prosperity Fund funded by UK Government.
Urban Wilderness CIC founding co-directors Laurel Gallagher, Isla Telford and Jenny Harper are three women with a driving belief that inclusive access to high-quality art can transform people and places.
They are the Event Producers for Longton Carnival & Pig Walk Parade, responsible for creative direction, funding, organising and management.
Why the “Pig Walk”?
John Aynsley of Aynsley China was Mayor of Longton from 1886. Aynsley made a bet with the Duke of Sutherland to walk a pig from Trentham to Longton. He did it!
For winning the bet, the Duke gave the land for Queen’s Park to the people of Longton. We celebrate this wonderful heritage story in the Pig Walk Parade!
Painting by John Singer Sergeant (© Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid)
Plaque dedicated to John Aynsley
Marvellous Millie
Millicent Sutherland Leveson Gower married the Fourth Duke of Sutherland and lived at Trentham Hall.
She founded the Sutherland Technical School, set up a Guild supporting disabled people to learn craft skills such as metal working and basket weaving, and campaigned for ten years to legislate for lower lead levels in pottery glazes, improving the health of thousands of pottery workers. She became known as Meddlesome Millie, but was actually Marvellous!