Spring in the Patch Takes a Fallow Year
The popular Spring in The Patch community festival held in William Clarke Park (better known as The Patch) will be taking a “fallow year” in 2026 with no event being held this April.
The Friends of William Clarke Park committee reluctantly took the decision not to go ahead this spring so that we can focus on raising funds, getting more volunteers actively involved and strengthening our structures.
It gets more expensive every year to safely organise events with rising insurance costs and essential equipment needing to be renewed or replaced.
Donations via our donations page are always welcome but even more important are volunteers willing to help organise events. We particularly need people with event management and fundraising skills but also people to help set up and steward events in the Patch. Here is the form to express interest.
We’ll still be active this year! Our annual Patch Spring Green Clean day will take place in March and we’ll be planning smaller community events to bring people together and raise funds for park improvements. We’re also hoping to hold our regular community get-together in September.
The Friends of William Clarke Park group is going through the process of registering as a charity so we can fundraise more effectively and continue working to keep The Patch a beautiful, welcoming space for people and wildlife alike.
If you would like to help out or to become a member of Friends of William Clarke (membership is free), please get in touch on info@williamclarkepark.org or via this form.
Autumn Event 2025
We are very excited to announce our autumn dance event on Saturday 13th September 4.30-9.30pm
A block party inspired event
There will be breakdancing, hip-hop, all the urban sounds and dance performances from streetfunk and projectfemale
Rap from: Marshall. Gramski. Teej
Street Art from Cassettelord, Brighton’s well known urban street artist will be creating a mural during the event.
Also DJ Frank! Francis will be interviewing Mark Riley who is a veteran Radio DJ/Journalist from New York in a Q&A “Reflections from The Paradise Garage & The New York Loft: A Conversation with Mark Riley and Francis Field”
Mark Riley was there, back in the day in New York and was friends of some of the folk who started the whole scene. A DJ who certainly has a tale or two to tell! Mark currently hosts a radio slot on 1BTN.
Here’s footage from a previous event, where Francis (DJ Frank) was on the “wheels of steel”.
DJ Frank says…
“The Patch Block Party event will be another great community event by The Friends of William Clarke Park, featuring music made in various districts of New York in the late 70’s to mid 80’s.
Great music came out of many communities such as The Bronx and Queens and reflected those communities. Some songs were about finding the best party, others about looking after one another and respecting yourself. Norman Jay says when at a 70’s block party, MFSB’s classic track “Love is the Message” came on, he said you could feel the togetherness and emotion.
Rap took off in a big way and community was everything in South Bronx’s “The Bottom Line”, Kurtis Blow’s “Hard Times”, Gary Byrd “The Crown” and of course Grandmaster Flash & The Furious Five (with Duke Bootee) “The Message”, a tough reality call on living in 80’s New York.
Disco, soul and funk were still big, labels like Prelude and West End bringing heavy funk like Forrrce’s dubbed out funk crazyness “Keep on Dancing” to the cool disco-funk of The Strikers’ “Body Music”. Soon reggae-disco landed with Monyaka’s floor winner, “Go deh Yaka – Go to the Top” and then there was the futuristic sounds of electro.
The rockers weren’t sleeping either, artists such as Talking Heads, James White & the Blacks, Arthur Russell, Lizzy Mercier Descloux and a young Madonna among many brought funk into their sound. It was all going on for sure!
Films such as “Wildstyle” and books “Can’t stop, won’t stop” by Jeff Chang and Sophie Bramley’s “Yo!” The early days of hip hop 1982-84″ give you a taste of what to expect at a very funky Patch event, hope to see you there!”
Why not contact City Books in Brighton for copies of the books!
Spring in The Patch took place on Sat 26th April 2025 1-7pm.
Thank you to all the people who supported our Spring in the Patch event and gave generous donations. We are pleased to announce that thanks to your help we are now in a position to run future events.
We would like to thank all the fantastic performers – Moon clouds, Hanover, Bedford Celts and Britpop Underground for making the event such a success.
We would also like to thank all the volunteers and committee members who helped with organising the event, and on the day with the various roles on the bar, tea tent, stewarding, gates, set up and set down. A shout out to Good Gym volunteers who supported with the set up.
Thank you also to the stall holders, including Loud Shirt breweries and to all the organisers of activities including archery, Quoya and Yoga tasters.
If you have any video footage or photos from the event that you would like to share, please email info@friendsofwilliamclarkepark
Many thanks,
FWCP