BURNING THE CLOCKS 2011

Celebrate the winter solstice!


Burning the Clocks combines a family solstice parade with a high quality fire show and fireworks for the whole city.  The lantern makers invest their lanterns with their wishes, hopes and fears and then pass them into the fire.  People have gathered to make paper and willow lanterns to carry through Brighton & Hove and burn on the beach as a token of the end of the year.  Lanterns have been fashioned into clocks, dancers, candles and dragons at workshops over the past few weeks – all to be lit on the beach at Kemp Town under moonlight.  No lantern is better for its purpose than any other, all are unique to the maker and precious but all are given up to be burnt to greet the lengthening days.

Thousands are expected to attend the celebration to mark the year’s shortest day.  The procession of 2,000 people will follow Our Lady of Light down to the sea where she will fire up the new sun and welcome a new solar year.

Help carry the spark of the new sun to sow on the beach ready for next Spring and follow Our Lady of Light as she makes her way down to the sea where the tides rise and the world turns and the sun is reborn.  See the baton pass from our lady to the spirit of the earth and watch as he takes the spark into the cold ground holding it as it grows into the new sun.  Once we burn our hopes and fears the heat of the fire brings up the new sun, the pendulum starts, the clocks tick and all is saved.  The silence is broken by the cheers and music of the new solar year.

Burning The Clocks is on Wednesday, December 21
The procession will leave North Street at 6.30pm, arriving at Madeira Drive at 7.15pm and the event is expected to finish at 8pm.