Bridgwater Carnival 2026 begins on Saturday in Bridgwater, where thousands are expected to line the streets for the Bridgwater Guy Fawkes Carnival. The event opens the November run on the Guy Fawkes Carnival Circuit across Somerset, and the scale is matched by the work behind it.
Renegades Carnival Club, founded in 1966, has about 50 members aged from 14 to 50-plus years old. Charlotte Edmonds is helping build the cart this year with her daughters Nell and Alice, and she summed up the family pull of the event: "I do come from a family of 'carnivalites'," and "my grandparents and great grandparents were carnivelites too."
Katie Whiting and Renegades
Katie Whiting, a teacher by day and Renegades Carnival Club captain, said the club is part of family history as much as performance. "Joining Renegades for me was kind of like a rite of passage," she said, adding, "My mum was actually pregnant with me when she became involved."
She also said, "A lot of what we do is in memory of people that aren't here - we do it for them always." That is the hard edge behind the colour: in a tradition that draws large crowds and is reported to bring in £4m to the local economy, evenings after work still go into painting, drawing and building carts.
Somerset's November circuit
Bridgwater is thought to be the UK's oldest carnival, and the wider circuit stretches beyond one town. Other Somerset towns including Frome, Wellington, Ilminster, Chard, Taunton, Wincanton, Castle Cary and Ansford also host carnivals throughout September and October before the November run begins.
That leaves the practical picture for anyone heading into Bridgwater on Saturday: the streets will be busy, the event sits at the front of an eight-event November circuit, and the cart built by people like Edmonds and her daughters is not a side detail but the mechanism that keeps the tradition alive.
