The theme for the 24th year of the parade was ‘A Night In The Museum’.

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The Year 6 children created carnival art and wore costumes inspired by artefacts in Lewes Castle Museum. 

 

We worked with the Sussex Archaeological Society to choose artefacts from the Lewes Castle Museum collection to inspire the parade. Their wonderful curator Emma O'Connor put on a study day for our team and artists to learn about the amazing artefacts. 

 

We worked closely with historian and professional storyteller Jon Mason who presented the theme and each school's artefact to all 14 schools participating.

 

The Year 6 children then worked with Patina’s team of professional artists – Mary Fellows, Sally Edwards, Leigh Hodgkinson, Sara Harris, Sandrine Case, Kathryn Jordan, Shan Isherwood and Paul Render – to design their costumes.

 

Lewes Castle Museum lent us a 120 million year old iguanodon femur fossil to take into schools!!

 

2025 marked the 200th anniversary of the discovery of the iguanodon by Lewes resident, Gideon Mantell. However, new research has shown evidence that it was in fact Gideon’s wife and professional natural history illustrator Mary Mantell found the fossil.

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Two life-sized iguanodon puppets took part in the parade, one was designed by artist Abbie Stanon and the other by the Wonky Paleontologists. We named them Mary and Gideon!

 

Each school carried an iguanodon egg and hatchling. The eggs were made in a workshop with artist Katie Griffiths. When the Year 6 children arrived back in the Paddock a couple of pupils from each school added them to a central iguanodon nest art installation.

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We had a 60-person samba band made up of school pupils playing in the Paddock, as well as a mass dance led by dance teacher Gemma Coe.

 

We finished the day with our popular evening event, Twilight Tales, with stories from Jon Mason and Jamie Crawford. We were also joined by Sussex Underwater for an amazing WR experience where you could see under the sea, actual footage from the Sussex coastline. 

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There will be an exhibition of the Moving On Parade 2025 at the Lewes Castle Museum in the autumn. 

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There are more photographs to view on Edward Reeve's website. 

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