CREDITON Parish Church is busy preparing for its annual Exhibition with Flowers and this year the theme will be literature or rather books and more books!

The title of Tales of Many Things ... has been inspired by a line from "The Walrus and the Carpenter" by Lewis Carroll.

From Saturday, June 5 to Thursday, June 10, the inside of the church will be turned into a large book shop with many floral displays and exhibits featuring and being based on well known novels or a series of books. The exhibition attracts around 4,000 visitors, from as far as field as Penzance and Bristol.

They flock to the church to see the beautiful flowers, which come from New Covent Garden London, Four Seasons of Crediton and local gardens and exhibitions, staged by members of Crediton Flower Club and other local flower arrangers.

The festival would not be possible without a great deal of hard work by members of the congregation and volunteers and without the support of many local businesses, individuals, advertisers and sponsors.

This year the Exhibition with Flowers will be open daily from 10.30am until 8.30pm except Sunday when it will be open from 11am until 6pm (when Festal Evensong begins) and Thursday from 10.30am to 5pm. It will be opened on the Saturday morning by a special peal on the bells by the local band of bell ringers, beginning at 10am.

This will be followed by a short welcome and prayer by Crediton Rector, the Rev Nigel Guthrie at 10.30am.

Admission to the exhibition will be free throughout but there will be an exhibition catalogue available to purchase, which will give background and supplementary information about the displays.

Throughout the festival there will be an exhibition and sale of original paintings in a variety of styles and media in the nearby Boniface Centre staged by the Newton St Cyres Art Group.

Refreshments will be available daily in the Boniface Centre (at the Mad Hatter's Café), which will be serving a variety of salads, puddings, cream teas and other light refreshments.

Where possible all the food is sourced locally or home-made and FairTrade tea and coffee will be available.

The catering opening hours are 10am to 6pm daily except on Sunday when it will be from 11am to 5pm and on the Thursday from 10am to 5pm. Lunches will be available from noon to 2pm and suppers from 4.30pm to 6pm (except Thursday). Last orders for meals will be 15 minutes before the catering closure times.

On the Thursday visitors should please note that only light refreshments will be available from between 2pm and 4.30pm.

With the increasing popularity of the festival, any groups wishing to go along, whilst very welcome, must pre-book their visit and refreshments. Booking enquiries should be made on 01363 776056.

Each evening of the festival (except Sunday and Thursday) there will be a short concert in the church starting at about 7pm and lasting between 30 and 45 minutes.

On Saturday Richard Brain (tenor) choral scholar at Exeter Cathedral and Kate Macpherson (Pianoforte) assistant organist at Holy Cross, Crediton, will present "Down by the Salley Gardens" which will include works by Butterworth, Britten, Stanford and Vaughan Williams.

On the Monday Matthew Wright will give a piano recital including works by Bach-Busoni, Grieg and Schumann.

Tuesday will be the turn of the Junior Choristers from Holy Cross Choir and on the Wednesday evening Crediton Town Band will present a programme of brass music that will no doubt be a fitting climax to the short concert series.

Throughout the festival there will be stalls in the church selling an array of craft items, plants, preserves, strawberries and cream, TraidCraft items, church shop goods (which will include some new ranges and copies of the 2011 Holy Cross calendar).

Guided tours to the Governors Room on the top floor of the Chapter House will be available twice daily (except Sunday) at noon and 3pm.

On Sunday one tour will take place at 3pm. Bell tower visits will take place daily (except Sunday) at 12.30pm.

The festival is the largest annual fundraiser for the church.

In the last couple of years money has been spent on refurbishing the church car park and the church toilets, installing lightning strike protection on the tower, dealing with safety issues in and around the churchyard, repairs to the West Window, internal floor repairs, repair to the cobbled paths in the south of the churchyard and most recently the sun dial and window above the south porch.

This year, profits will go towards the £120,000 appeal to rewire and relight the church. Anyone wanting further information about the Rewiring and Relighting Appeal should look out for a display in the Lady Chapel and Appeal leaflets around the church.