News

This will be the first Extravaganza in three years and the Dunblane Development Trust can’t wait to bring this community event back for everyone to enjoy! We’re keeping it local and we’ve got a packed evening for you.

Order of Events   Reverse Christmas    Storytelling Pods    Map of Events

The High Street will be closed to traffic between Charisma and the gold postbox from 5pm - 8.30pm on Thursday 1 December and shops, businesses, cafés and food outlets will stay open late. So lots of opportunities for everyone to enjoy a bit of socialising, some late-night shopping and the chance to buy your tea from one or more of the many fab local eateries!

At 5.30pm Santa will arrive on his sleigh accompanied by his elves and, with help from six primary school children, will switch on the lights of a giant Christmas tree* at station plaza and start the event. Youngsters visiting Santa in his grotto are being invited to bring a tin or packet for Start Up Stirling in a reverse Christmas (read more here) and, in return, will be given a lasting memento made here by the dedicated teams at Creative Dunblane. Mrs Claus will be joining us for the first time ever (at the library) and there’ll be Alpacas to  (at the gold postbox)!

This is the Year of Storytelling and we’ll have several Storytelling pods along the route in various locations including the Library. Local authors will be reading excerpts from their books to children, teens and adults and a variety of storytellers will be telling traditional and festive tales to young folk too.

Різдвяна феєрія в Данблейн Четвер, 1 грудня

There’ll be a Winter Wonderland at Dunblane Christian Fellowship and other churches will be open too for you to enjoy music and more. There’ll also be a Nativity Trail in shop windows and lots more going on throughout the evening.

And throughout all of this, we’ll have a wonderful selection of talented musicians and performers who’ll be entertaining us throughout the evening, including Rubber Chicken Theatre, the Rosenethe Singers, Boys’ Brigade band, Dunblane Cathedral Handbell Ringers and Dunblane Shanty Crew. And we very much hope that we’ll be joined by some Ukrainian singers on the night so that we can enjoy hearing a traditional song or two from their homeland.

Then at 8.30pm the Pipes & Drums of Queen Victoria School will provide a heart-stirring full stop to the Extravaganza as they march through the town and bring the event to a close. We’re so looking forward to this special evening for everyone and do hope you can join us!

We are very grateful to Barty’s for sponsoring the giant Christmas Tree this year. If anyone would like to support the work of the Dunblane Development Trust Town Centre group please get in touch with DDT for sponsorship opportunities

You’ll see this Extravaganza QR code on publicity soon. This, the webpage to which it leads, will be updated on a regular basis as details become confirmed so please keep checking so you don’t miss anything. Download this article

Extrav QR

Map   Dunblane Christmas Extravaganza 6

extra

The Leighton library, which is the oldest purpose-built library in Scotland, opened in 1687 and houses not only the private collection of Bishop Robert Leighton but many other masterpieces and first editions such as The Edinburgh Edition of Robert Burns poems (1787). The collection having been added to over the centuries now extends to around 4,500 books with the oldest book dating back to 1504.
 
The Grade -A library building, located in Dunblane is now 333 years old and is in urgent need of restoration and following a successful fund-raising appeal by the trustees of the library, the restorative works are now ready to go ahead which include repairs to the roof, leadwork, stonework, windows and doors as well as the marble cartouche and other works.
 
In preparation for the restoration work to begin in mid-November, the library had to be emptied and Doree Bonner International were tasked with the job of packing and storing the book collection alongside twelve chairs of turkie leather and the framed American Atlas maps.
 Emptying book cases 2
The packing of these valuable masterpieces required the upmost care and precision. A small team of Doree Bonners professional expert packers were selected to carry out the job - and as space was extremely limited in the library area there was only room for three packers.
 Books ready for wrapping
Each of the 4,500 books was taken from the bookcases separately and then carefully wrapped using acid free tissue paper, one piece per book, the acid free tissue gives protection to the book covers or bindings which are either leather or vellum. The packers wore white cotton gloves to handle the books, which were changed every day. 
 Book wrapping
The books were then placed in special lidded crates and forty to sixty crates were filled each day; packs of silicone gel have been inserted into each of the crates to absorb any moisture. 
 Book crates in container ready to go to storage
The crates were then carried to one of our containerised vehicles and taken to be stored in one of Doree Bonner’s secure storage facilities. With the library area now completely empty the restoration works will begin and it is anticipated that this will take around four months.
 Library empty
Colin Mcgregor – Special Projects Director for Doree Bonner International commented:
‘We are delighted to be a part of such a major project for the Leighton library, the handling of such historic pieces has been an honour. We look forward to returning the books to their rightful home when the restoration works are complete’
 
Alan Clevett – Leighton Library Trustee Executive commented
‘The Library Trustees and Executive have been delighted with the service provided by Doree Bonner and their on-site team.  A friendly welcome from the first morning, punctual, and very clear in explaining their daily objectives and combining those with the needs of the library. The team were clearly very experienced in handling rare books and treated them with the same care and attention that the library itself has for them!
 
Any unforeseen challenges were managed and resolved efficiently, and cooperation was excellent, gaining the full respect of everyone at the Leighton Library.  We hope you will care for our books, and we look forward to seeing them, and your team, when they are returned next year!

 

Donations can be made at www.leightonlibrary.org.uk

 

 

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