TICKETS are now on sale for the Chalke Valley History Festival.

The seven-day festival from June 22-28 will see more than 140 speakers and more than 110 talks and debates.

There will also be in excess of 300 historians and re-enactors.

Festival co-chairman James Heneage said: “This is Chalke Valley’s fifth year and we are already one of the UK’s biggest festivals.

“It proves history is alive and well in this country and people will assemble in their thousands to be amazed and entertained by the past. We’re particularly proud so many young people come to our Schools Festival which runs in parallel.”

Among the festival favourites making a return are Ian Hislop, Michael Wood, Neil Oliver, Antony Beevor, Tom Holland and Dan Snow. New faces include historian David Starkey, the director of the British Museum Neil MacGregor, Oscar-winning screenwriter and creator of Downton Abbey Julian Fellowes, award-winning biographer Claire Tomalin, Andrew Roberts, who will be talking about Napoleon, Ranulph Fiennes speaking on Agincourt, acclaimed journalist and writer Anita Anand on the dispossessed Indian Princess Sophia Duleep Singh and anatomist and broadcaster Alice Roberts, who will be deciphering the history of our anatomical understanding.

There will be a chance to meet Jeremy Hutchinson, the greatest criminal barrister of his generation, when he appears in conversation with Jon Snow at the age of 100.

The year 2015 is a year of many anniversaries and the festival will be marking all of them, from the 800th of Magna Carta and the 600th of Agincourt to the 200th of Waterloo, the 100th of Gallipoli and the 75th of the Battle of Britain.

For tickets and a full list of speakers visit cvhf.org.uk