HALLOWEEN MASS HOT AIR BALLOON LAUNCH
SAT 31ST OCTOBER, 2PM
GILBERT WHITE’S HOUSE AND THE OATES MUSEUM, SELBORNE
Open 11am until 5pm
Normal Admission Fee applies
Gilbert White’s House & Garden and the Oates Museum will be hosting a Halloween balloon launch on The Great Mead this Saturday, 31st October between 1 and 2pm. The weather forecast is good enough that 10 or 11 balloons, with their occupants in fancy dress, will be arriving in Selborne.
A final decision on a launch will be made just before that time.
This could make a lovely picture or tv opportunity and, if you were interested, please call the museum any time after 9.30am and you will be given the latest news on the weather and the likelihood of the launch.
If it goes ahead David Standing, our Head Gardener who is celebrating 30 years at the House, will take off in the balloon.
This is very appropriate because Gilbert White witnessed and recorded one of the early hot air balloons:
1st October 1790
‘This day at 4 o’clock Edmund White launched an air balloon from Selborne Down measuring about 8 feet and a half in length and 16 feet in circumference. It went off in a steady and grand manner to the East & settled in about 15 minutes at Todmoor on the verge of the Forest.’
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