Lighting the Woods: what's on!

 

LIGHTING THE WOODS

the events list!

what's on:
talk, make, laugh, smile
be inspired!

Take time to pause,

To breathe, to walk, to wander,

To enjoy the woods of Buxton.

Step out in the darkest time of the year into an evening of wonder and remember summer flowers, butterflies, autumn toadstools and appreciate the winter cold

On Saturday February 21st 2026, Stone and Water invite you to take a walk through Grinlow Woods…tiny lanterns will flicker among tree roots, giant tree people will watch from the shadows, leaf-lanterns and shimmering birds will fill the branches. Join us for an evening of wonders

Put together in partnership with Buxton Civic Association, the Babbling Vagabonds and Creeping Toad, Lighting the Woods will celebrate the woods of Buxton. The underlying theme is just that: "local woods: their wildlife and wonder"

Events

All events are free: no booking or tickets needed: just drop by and join in!

January:
Tuesday 20th: sharing ideas: an open invitation for anyone who might like to get involved to come along and share ideas, offer skills, characters or just enthusiasm! We'll be at the Cheshire Cheese, 37 - 39 High St, Buxton, SK17 6HA...drop in and have a chat!

Sunday 25th: Woodland Windows and Wild Birds, Buxton Country Park, Temple Road, Buxton, SK17 9DH. Take the woodland home as a wonderful image in a picture frame. Coinciding with RSPB's Big Garden Birdwatch, we'll be encouraging people to have a go here at the Cavern about then to take information away to do a Birdwatch survey of their own at home
Parking: at the Visitor Centre - charges apply
Bus stops: Community School/Green Lane


February:

Sunday 8th: Garden Lights, Serpentine Community Garden, off Burlington Rd, Buxton, SK17 9DR10:00 - 13:00. Inspired by the flowers and seed heads, the leaves and stalks and wildlife of the Gardens, we'll make tiny bottle lanterns. Make one to take home and leave us one for Lighting the Woods

Please bring a clean plastic bottle with you if possible (500ml- 2l all work!)
Parking: at the Pavilion Gardens Car Park (charges apply) or on Burlington Road.
Bus stops: Pavilion Gardens or West Road)

Sunday 15th: Bottle Lanterns at Buxton Country Park, Temple Road, Buxton, SK17 9DH,10:30- 15:00 The patterns of winter trees, leaf skeletons and the shapes of hibernating animals could all appear in these beautiful lanterns. Make one to take home and leave us one for Lighting the Woods

Please bring a clean plastic bottle with you if possible (500ml- 2l all work!)
Parking: at the Visitor Centre - charges apply
Bus stops: Community School/Green Lane

Tuesday 17th Woodland wildlife: Buxton Library, Kents Bank Road Buxton, SK17 9HW: making bugs and beasties: we'll use card and shiny scrap to make a collection of wonderful creatures for our Lighting the Woods event. Make one for us to keep and one for yourself to look after at home!

Parking: at library
Bus stops: Cote Heath Park on Heath Park Road

Thursday 19th: Where we live is...CREATIVE, Assembly Rooms, The Crescent, Buxton, SK17 6BU.Join our woodland team at this lively event by the Buxton Crescent Heritage Trust: we'll be drawing, cutting, sticking and probably making a lovely mess!

Times: 10:30-12:30 & 2-4pm
Parking: town centre car park
Bus stops: Terrace Road

Saturday 21st: Lighting the Woods: Buxton Country Park, Temple Road, Buxton, SK17 9DH and at last we fill the woods with lights and tiny creatures and strange characters. Come and take an late afternoon wander through the trees and meet the magical world of Grinlow Woods!

Parking: at the Visitor Centre - charges apply
Bus stops: Community School/Green Lane

WEATHER WARNING: we will try to go ahead unless our Buxton winter really hits hard! If you aren't sure: check the links below on 19th or20th of February

MORE INFORMATION:

Facebook: creeping toad or stoneandwater

Ig: creepingtoad or Limestone740

Blogs:

creepingtoad.blogspot.com

stoneandwaterblog.wordpress.com

Lighting the Woods

LIGHTING THE WOODS

Take time to pause,

To breathe, to walk, to wander, 

To enjoy the woods of Buxton.

Step out in the darkest time of the year into an evening of wonder and remember summer flowers, butterflies, autumn toadstools and appreciate the winter cold

 

On Saturday February 21^st 2026, we invite you to take a walk through Grinlow Woods…tiny lanterns will flicker among tree roots, giant tree people will watch from the shadows, leaf-lanterns and shimmering birds will fill the branches. Join us for an evening of wonders

 

Creeping Toad is joining forces with Stone and Water, the Babbling Vagabonds and Buxton Civic Association to create Lighting the Woods, a project that will celebrate the woods of Buxton. The underlying theme is just that: "local woods: their wildlife and wonder"

 

And it depends upon our town's creativity to make it happen! We need to people to help make tiny lanterns, create woodland windows that will fit together into curtains to hang, nimble fingers to make little glowing animals!

 

The plan

We're aiming to set up a short self-guided walk from the car park at Poole's Cavern on Saturday 21st February in a loop round the woods. The walk will be there for about 3 hours and there will be lanterns to glow over, poems to read,  small, strange characters to spot…big, strange characters to wave to!  

There will be public events in January and February where anyone can come along (dates and venues below) and make a lantern to add to the collection (and make another to take home!). 

 

Events

Public events are still finalising: hopefully a couple more will join this list

All events are free

 

January: 

Sunday 25th: at Poole's Cavern: Woodland windows and wild birds : free, drop-in public event: woodland inspired art. Coinciding with RSPB's Big Garden Birdwatch, we'll be encouraging people to have a go here at the Cavern but then to take information away to do a Birdwatch survey of their own at home

Event link: https://fb.me/e/5swu3d7Qk

Times:10.30-3.00

Venue: Buxton Country Park, Temple Road, Buxton, SK17 9DH

Moreinformation about the Birdwatch: 

https://www.rspb.org.uk/whats-happening/big-garden-birdwatch

 

February: we’ll add details nearer the time:for now, get these dates in your diary!

Sunday 15th: Buxton Country Park: bottle lanterns: drawing on the patterns of winter trees, leaf skeletons and the shapes of hibernating animals 

17th Buxton Library: bugs and beasties: using shiny scrap and fluorescent card to give us some wildlife for the final event

19th: ss at the Crescent: we’re joining the BCHT for their “Where we live is…Creative’ event. Come along and make some woodland wonders! We’re going for bottle lanterns, shadow shapes, tree windows  and  general wildness 

21st: Lighting the Woods: final event: late afternoon wanderings in Grinlow Woods

 

 

 

 

Tree decorations!

 

Tree mobiles

 

hang your own woodland stories in your home
 ~ a quiet activity for a winter evening

 

 

you will need:

·      a piece of card - we worked on a piece of A5 (about 15 x 21cm)*

·      a pencil

·      coloured pencils or pens

·      some glue (PVA or glue stick glue)

·      scissors

·      a needle or small hole punch

·      some thread or thin string

 

(* you don't need art card: you could do this with a cereal packet or draw on paper and then stick onto cereal packet card when you are ready to cut out) 

This is a blog first published on the site of Toadfriends and colleagues Stone and Water, reblogging here so that it can reach a different set of visitors!

It is associated with the SnW Celebrating Woodlands project

 

Think about: a tree you know (or would like to know!) Maybe consider the tree's life cycle of bud, leaf, fruit and animals...or treehouses and swings… or hanging by your toes in your very own circus tree....

 

In our pictures here we've used pen to make lines show up: if you did this in pencil you could rub the guidelines out afterwards!

 

1. Draw 2 upside down 'T' shapes. these need to be about the same size. A smaller 'T" could fit in between them. These will help keep drawings 1 and 2 about the same size

Step 1, guidelines

Step 2, drawing trees

Step3, colouring trees!

 

2. Draw 3 stages of your tree:1 and 2 need to be about the same size while 3 is OK to be smaller (you have more card? make 3 the same size as the others!)

 

3. Colour in!

 

4. Cut out: don't cut right up to your lines, give yourself some room around your drawings. Then fold drawings 1 and 2 in half along the long line of that first T

 

5. Glue 1 and 2 together on one half of the back of your drawing so they make a Y shape. Then glue 3 into the blank side of this shape. Carefully trim away extra card to show up the shape of your drawing

Step 5: trim

 

6. If you have drawn circles like we did, use these (if they have matched up! they often don't) as a guide to punch a hole. or just make a hole toward the top of your tree! Thread a string through. Add some finishing touches? Glitter? some sequin snowflakes? 

Fold and glue

 

Hang up your tree and enjoy!

There are more woodland events coming from Stone and Water and Creeping Toad in between January and March 2026: keep an eye on this page and on the Toad social media for more details!

Creeping Toad:

Facebook: Creeping Toad

Instagram: Creepingtoad

the Folk Union

Winter gifts?

 

Winter gifts?

books for long, dark nights

Waiting for the quiet feathers,

That drift through the trees,

That smother the world into silence.

 Waiting, still waiting, for the snow.

Waiting for the snow, Gordon MacLellan

As the nights are drawing in and our thoughts turn to the lingering darkness and a need for something to keep us busy other than sitting knitting socks for sheep, and there are gifts to pursue for Christmas, Midwinter, Yule and All, Creeping Toad would like to offer a few extra treats for you, for a loved one or maybe for someone whose complacency you would simply like to disturb….

Books

Sacred Animals: creative, reflective and adventurous ways of exploring relationships with the animal world (or apply similar ideas to trees, other plants, fungi and stones: it’s up to you!) Here are ways of building meditations, composing poems, making outfits, masks, tokens and totems, £15.06 *

Waiting for the Snow: my most recent collection of poems: words for dark evenings and  desire for open spaces, for the northern seas on the rocks of Orkney, for ravens watching the world go by and for the kelpie who waits in dark still poems

50 pages, A5, £5.97

There are cracks in the pavement 

Where the bears live,

Feeding on the careless words we drop

Between one step and the next.

Whisper along the Wind: or you can listen and be drawn into stillness by the beautiful music of Gifts from Crows and words from myself: Orchards are here and the dark night of Vigil and the sharp Beaks of Raven

Baba Yaga: tales of an old witch: a small collection celebrating one of the wildest of the wild witches from her house that follows you through the crowded woods to herself polishing the rust off her teeth, £4.36

Old stones and ancient bones: an older collection poems with words from hollow hills, of bones and skulls and the satyr who waits on the Dancing Lawns

£5.00 direct from me

*Please don't blame me for the strangeness of pricings!  But you can order direct - cheaper! Email below

Ordering: you can go through eBay: the links will take you there. If you want the full set, message me directly as that might be easier!

Email: creepingtoad@btinternet.com

Hide a witch,

Inside a house,

Inside a wood,

Inside a beck,

Inside a bog,

Inside a crag,

Inside a world,

Inside a doll.