A festival will be held to celebrate National Apple Day in Blackburn this month.

Blackburn with Darwen Food Alliance is hosting an Apple Day Festival at Corporation Park on Sunday, October 20 – the day before National Apple Day - to promote healthy eating and celebrate food.

Annie Collier, a Blackburn with Darwen food alliance coordinator, said: “It’s going to be a really lovely, sharing community event."

The event will include foraging, apple games, apple bobbing, a treasure hunt, hot food, apple achar pickle tasting, printmaking, herbal remedies, and visitors will even be able to press their own juice through an apple press.

Cherry Tree Beekeepers will have a stall at the event; Blackburn Library will have a stall all about apples; Maggie’s Stillbirth Legacy will be doing leaf crafts; Rachael Mills and Judy will have a crochet workshop; and Revidge Allotments will have a tools/pruning workshop.

This is the Food Alliance’s second Apple Day Festival, and the organisation is hoping to make it an annual occurrence.

The event is planned to be a sharing community event to allow people to try different forms and varieties of apples, with members of the community bringing apples from their allotments and gardens.

The aim of the event is to celebrate food and to get the community together to celebrate food.

Part of Blackburn with Darwen Food Alliance’s aim is to offer support and advice for people about healthy eating and lifestyles, helping Blackburn to become a place where eating, cooking, growing and accessing good food is open to all.

This includes getting people to taste different foods.

Annie said: “A lot of people might eat apple in a purée form or as an apple pie with a lot of sugar, so actually tasting what different apples taste like is a really good brain connector to get people to understand different textures and flavours and what different things can be used for.”

The event is in collaboration with Corporation Park Supporters Groups and will be held in their community gardens space (the old bowling green) at Corporation Park.

The event is free and will be held from 12pm to 3pm on Sunday, October 20.