UPDATE 16/8/21:
And a couple more of Jamie’s images from Lechlade. And a memory:
nice to know you were at Lechlade too, we stayed until Sunday too, it was a good mayhem!! I think I stayed in bed for about a week after that one
UPDATE 11/8/21:
Jamie (whose images can also be found in the Roundway Hill post) also sent us these from Lechlade, thanks a million!
Hello Graudian readers! Thanks for visiting, but thanks to a mistake on this page, this isn’t the page you’re looking for! Click here for the Castlemorton Common free festival page. Cheers!
Update 8/6/21:
Although we recently heard that Fun-de-mental were there no-one has confirmed so we removed them. We never came across them in our limited wanderings, which doesn’t really mean much, so anyone confirm that they were there, either as part of a bigger rig or on their own? Thanks!
Here is a new report from reliable raver Simon M:
No idea [how we heard about it]. But I think the original information I had was that it was going to be in Hungerford and possibly put on by an organisation called Asylum? Think we left from Bridport. We would have got details of the location along the way but who from I don’t know. Did we have a number to call? We might have seen fellow ravers at a petrol station, and as we got closer to the site we would have joined a convoy of cars.
[We got there] early evening. First impressions were how huge it was; cars and traveller vehicles everywhere. We were worried about there being so many police but when I wound down my window to speak to one all he wanted to tell me was where to park. …how busy it was, and how loud it was and as we approached the first sound system it got more and more intense and people looked more and more gaunt like they’d been drugged up and dancing for hours.
I seem to remember D taking me off around the site trying to score and we ended up sharing a joint with some people in the back of their Luton van. They had turntables and it was decked out like a chill out room. I got the feeling they were posh travellers. Nice though.
I do remember spending most of our time at Circus Warp. Best music, best decor, best vibe. I’ve got written down that I had a Roobarb & Custard, Black Sun (acid?) and a gram of speed.
I seem to remember dancing a lot, mostly at Circus Warp. I think I had my spy sunglasses on, with mirrors in the sides so you could see behind you, but while dancing and nodding your head it gave a really good extra dimension to the rhythm of dancing. I also remember dancing on my own and I kept thinking I was seeing people I knew but when I went up to them it wasn’t who I thought it was. I remember seeing some very straight looking people dancing and figured out they were probably locals from Lechlade, come down to see what all the fuss was about and decided to stay and party.
Can’t remember any actual tunes at Circus Warp but they played excellent breakbeat the whole time. In the morning Spiral played Digeridoo and there was a very nutty looking guy who looked high as a kite flinging his arms in the air to the beat.
Was it at Lechlade that there was the guy in orange trousers and floppy hat dancing on the roof of a van grinning and pointing at people and dancing in the most funky way? Someone on freepartypeople must know who he is.
We spent quite a lot of time in the car listening in amazement as the Orbital remixes seemed to ricochet around the inside of the car. I did my usual of spending what seemed like hours trying to roll a joint, only to find the papers were the wrong way round. Felt drugged up to the eyeballs, unable to move and had to wait until things got less intense before we could venture back outside.
[On the Sunday morning] I think we saw some very out of it travellers get into car (off on a Brew mission I think) and somehow drove it around people and tents and other cars through the field without hitting a thing.
I don’t remember any tension [between travellers and ravers], but I do remember seeing a traveller lying in the field in front of the Spiral sound system and a raver going to shake his hand and trying to lift him up. The raver was putting everything into lifting up the traveller and the traveller, in his blissed out state was remaining on the grass and in my mind it turned into a struggle between urban and rural, manufactured and organic, intensity and indifference.
Probably drove back Sunday afternoon/evening. I expect we didn’t have a huge amount to say to eachother. We were probably listening to some more mellow music, Special K perhaps, rolling lots of joints and looking forward to gettting home and getting some sleep.
Update 23/1/21:
From Ian Young, It’s Not About Me! Confessions Of A Recovered Outlaw Addict- From Living Hell To Living Big. Norwich: Anoma Press, 2013, p.59-60.
Here are a couple of news reports about this party. Thanks again to faithful contributor Mr. Clang for the tip, and Youtuber Spaceweed23 for the upload!
Here’s a report from someone who wishes to remain anonymous:
A disused quarry in Gloucestershire was the venue for this 8,000/10,000/15,000-strong free technofesty blowout. Who counts the numbers anyway ;P If it was based on the number of cars it would be an underestimate- 4 people per car was the absolute minimum those days. Police estimates are always ALWAYS under (for obvious reasons), especially at ‘oppositional’ events e.g. free unlicensed 3-day festivals, reclaim the streets etc. demonstrations.
This pic of Lechlade featured in an article in Select magazine:
An excerpt from Simon M‘s rave diary:
Missed Castlemorton due to leaving my brain at Lechlade. A long drive up. I think we got the location of the party from the news reports:
When we arrived we had a jittery moment because the police stopped our car on the way in. FFFFFFffffUUUUUCCCCkkkkk! Oh no, it’s OK, they’re just telling us where to park, politely. A few metres away a dealer was standing in the middle of the road bellowing “Rhubarb and Custards! Callies!”
I think the big white tent in the pics above was DiY’s but I don’t remember there being a rig in there at this do.
This blue and orange marquee in the pic above was Circus Warp’s. I also remember a load of far out UV stuff dangling from the roof of their tent, including bicycle wheels. Also a mad max robot and some red/orange speakers too:
A fantastic atmosphere but there was a little friction between the hippies and the ravers- heard a few expensively dressed ravers getting harangued by the crusties: “OOOOOooooh dress to IMPRESS!”. Oh yeah, and someone laughed at my hat. I deserved it for sure 
Other sights and sounds:
Flinching at the sheer excessive volume of the beat coming from the Spiral system in the blazing sunlight on Sunday morning, when we felt particularly fragile.
A brew crew/keta/acid/whatever casualty rolling around on the ground trying to scratch the tattoo off his arm.
A bunch of well-spoken but off-their-tits Oxford medical students who came and sat in our car, and jabbered with us for either 3 minutes or three hours.
A misty and gentle sunrise over one of the huge trout ponds (which, incidentally, contained huge trout).
Seeing some poor fucker who’d overdone it being carted away.
Finding a lost crusty puppy.
Taking photos of ourselves and the next week wondering what the nice girl in Boots thought was wrong with our faces in the pictures.
The aftermath:
It was even mentioned in the Commons:
Sir David Mitchell (Hampshire, North-West) :
I noticed that on the spring bank holiday about 30,000 people attended a pop festival at Lechlade in Gloucestershire, and if more itinerants and hippies come to my constituency in the pre-solstice period, the noise disturbance, the petty crime and the filth that they will leave behind will cause my constituents great anxiety.
also
On 21 June, the summer solstice arrives and large numbers of hippies, itinerants and new-age travellers can be expected. Some of my constituents call them by names that cannot be expressed in parliamentary language.