This year’s festival is packed with incredible events and activities for you to attend and take part in to remember and celebrate Halifax’s own Anne Lister on her 235th birthday.

The festival runs from Monday 30th March – Monday 6th April (inclusive) and again incorporates the Anne Lister Society (ALS) conference as well as the Anne Lister Birthday Week (ALBW) celebrations. As always, we look forward to welcoming all of our visitors, including academics from around the world to the ALS conference in Halifax: home to and birthplace of Anne Lister.

We shall once again be bringing Anne’s story to life as you visit her family home of Shibden Hall and its grounds to look at some of the plants and herbs that she may have used. There will also be a display including never-before-exhibited costumes from Gentleman Jack at Shibden Hall.

Walk in Anne Lister and Ann Walker’s footsteps on expert-led tours around Halifax and Lightcliffe; this year we once again have on offer the most special of pilgrimages up the beautiful Old Bank between Halifax Minster and Shibden Hall: the ‘Way of the Setts’.

An exciting first: Northern Ballet’s Gentleman Jack will be performed during the Anne Lister Festival; their first new production in five years, all about Anne Lister herself.  We shall be offering you a one-off coach trip for an afternoon at the ballet in Sheffield to enjoy this wonderful production. Another one-off special event will be happening courtesy of our friends at Haugh End Manor, who will be opening up the grounds that Anne Lister frequented for social visits – and where scenes from Gentleman Jack were filmed!

Your one-stop shop Anne Lister Headquarters will be open for purchasing Anne Lister merch and answering any queries about the festival. Many of the festival’s activities and events will be taking place there, and this year we are hoping to bring you two special exhibitions in this space too! And of course, there will be the annual flower laying at the sculpture of Anne Lister in The Piece Hall, with the Calderdale Archives search room also open for you to meet and chat to the brilliant archives team and see some of the collection – including Anne’s diaries – up close.

How will you fit it all in?

We really can’t wait to welcome you to the 2026 Anne Lister Festival!

Click the Learn More button below to find the full programme, or Book Now to book your tickets - please note: with the exception of the Northern Ballet trip, tickets are not on sale until Saturday 17th January at 5pm.

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