David Brown Celebration Day

Sunny Bank Mills gets set to host more than 50 iconic cars & tractors, thousands of printed bees, and a record breaking carrot  50 Aston Martins, 50,000 printed bees and the world’s longest painted carrot are some of the attractions at Sunny Bank Mills as cars and culture collide for a free family fun day on 5 September from 10am – 4pm. This is the second year that Farsley’s Aston Martin heritage will be celebrated at the Mill, with more than 50 old era and new era Aston Martin Lagonda cars and their owners coming from all over the UK to showcase their pride and joy. Between 1953 and 1957 Farsley was a main production hub for the LB6 engine, used in both for the Aston Martin and DB2 models. The factory was owned by David Brown, who also had a Huddersfield engineering company that produced gear boxes for tractors. The iconic ‘DB’ series of the British sports cars take their name from Brown’s initials and their place in popular culture history was secured when the DB5 featured in the James Bond film ‘Goldfinger’. The cars will take part in a parade through the village from Westroyd Park, where a stone plinth indicating the location of the original factory will be unveiled by Adam Brown, grandson of David, at 11am, before parking up at Sunny Bank Mills by midday. Throughout the day, visitors can call into the Sunny Bank Mills Gallery to see a selling exhibition of work submitted to celebrate the tractors and fast cars of the 1950s alongside ‘Cabinet of Curiosities’, a collection of eclectic and colourful new paintings from local artist, Mel Davies, shown together with curiosities from his personal collection. Elsewhere in the Mill, budding artists and enthusiastic amateurs alike can get their hands dirty by getting directly involved in two artistic record breaking attempts.  In the historic Weaving Shed, ‘Throw Up!’, a constantly evolving installation of street art, covers the walls of the 14,000sqft space and features the work of more than 40 graffiti artists. Marking the finale of the exhibition, visitors are invited to add to a mural of a giant carrot throughout the day, aiming to make it the world’s longest painted carrot. Painter Printmaker Laney Birkhead will be encouraging everyone to create a ‘swarm’ of honeybees hand printed individually onto fabric.  The results of the day will be added to other pieces created at earlier workshops to ultimately produce a large, record breaking original print depicting how many bees can be found in a single beehive. This will be transformed into a walk in installation to be shown at Sunny Bank Mills in the near future. William Gaunt, Joint Managing Director at Sunny Bank Mills, commented: “Sunny Bank Mills has become a community hub for families in the area, as well as a place which cultivates creativity and on 5 September, everything combines to make a perfect day to pay us a visit.  The Mill is a highly visible part of Farsley’s history and it is wonderful that we are able to celebrate the village’s legendary link to Aston Martins. It will be a great day out for all ages to enjoy getting up close and personal with the cars and enter into some fantastic creative fun.”

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