A Festival of the Moon will be held in Wells Cathedral in the autumn, with the centrepiece being a giant art installation.

As well as the large Museum of the Moon touring artwork, the festival will include talks and performances including from the first British astronaut Helen Sharman, Fairport Convention and Patricia Routledge.

The Museum of the Moon is a touring artwork by British artist Luke Jerram who creates sculptures, large installations and live arts projects.

At an approximate scale of 1:500,000, each centimetre of the internally lit spherical sculpture represents 5km of the moon's surface.

The installation is a fusion of lunar imagery, moonlight and surround sound composition created by BAFTA and Ivor Novello award winning composer Dan Jones.

The Museum of the Moon will be presented in Wells Cathedral from October 12 to November 3 2021, and will be accompanied by a constellation of events culminating in the Festival of the Moon.

First of these events will be a talk by Helen Sharman in Wells Cathedral on Wednesday October 13.

She became the first British Astronaut in May 1991, aged 27, when she launched on a Russian Soyuz spacecraft.

She spent eight days orbiting the Earth, living and working on the Mir Space Station. Helen celebrates her 30th anniversary in May 2021.

Helen will be enthusing her audience about space, STEM and the wonders of science. She will describe the meticulous training and preparation, learning Russian, launch and landing, how weightlessness feels, her science experiments, the team spirit, and readjusting to life on Earth.

October 14 will see A Grand Day Out with the Cathedral Choristers and Captain Noah, while Fairport Convention will be performing in the cathedral on October 16.

A performance by the Handel Players will take place as part of the festival on October 22, with the Echoes of Ellington Orchestra playing the day afterwards.

From October 26 to 28, Wells Theatre Festival will be combining with the Festival of the Moon to present a Midsummer Night's Dream, it's community theatre production that is directed by a professional creative team but cast entirely from the residents of Wells and surrounding area.

On Friday October 29, Dame Patricia Routledge and Piers Lane will be performing, and more details will be revealed about this soon.

If you have a seven-metre replica of the moon suspended in Wells Cathedral, what better accompaniment would there be than a live performance of Pink Floyd's epic The Dark Side of the Moon plus other great Floyd songs?

This is precisely what you can expect in the cathedral on Saturday October 30, and it promises to be a stunning show.

Darkside, the Pink Floyd Show has worked together with Wells Cathedral and the Museum of the Moon to bring this spectacular to life.

To conclude the festival, Wells Cathedral is thrilled to welcome back Dominic Beeton and Ian Close to perform under Luke Jerram's Museum of the Moon on November 1.

Seasoned session musician and saxophonist, Ian Close, and film and TV composer, Dominic Beeton, will be performing a full programme from their Sanctus Project.

Ian has faithfully transcribed the vocal lines from early sacred music of the 12th and 13th century and – supported by Dominic on pump organ, harmonium, shruti box and percussion instruments – has created an album called Sanctus.

The result is a deeply spiritual and meditative experience whose natural home is the cathedrals, abbeys and churches of Europe. Ian and Dominic have been touring with this album since January this year to critical acclaim.