Secret Garden Party: Festival returns after five-year break

About 30,000 people attended the last festival, which was held in 2017

A music and arts festival dubbed "the worst kept secret" is to return next year after being halted five years ago.

The Secret Garden Party began in a not-so-secret location in Abbots Ripton in Cambridgeshire in 2003 and has grown from a few hundred festival-goers to tens of thousands.

The last one was held in 2017 but it will now return from 21 to 24 July 2022.

Its founder, Freddie Fellowes, promised "a serious party".

Rumours of the Secret Garden Party's (SGP) return had been circulating on social media, but the organisers have now announced it will take place again next year.

The Secret Garden Party has always attracted unusual guests

Mr Fellowes said: "Twenty years ago, I started out with a set of ideas as to what makes a good party as well as the most perfect venue for it.

"Much has changed since our first Garden Party, when there was nothing else like it in the UK - Facebook, YouTube and Twitter had yet to be invented and no-one knew what a boutique festival was, let alone glamping."

Crowds enjoy a paint fight at the main stage

Organisers described the festival as "passionately independent" and Mr Fellowes said: "We have never compromised our principles and we never will.

"SGP has always been a beacon of what you can do within those terms and, as imitation (being the sincerest form of flattery) proves, it has set the bar for everyone else going forward."